Birther’s Continue Their Conspiracy Mongering of Obama’s Citizenship

One thing that’s true of most conspiracy theories is that they never die – they may be buried for awhile, but the hardcore true believers will insure that they don’t ever quite go away.  Case in point: the ludicrous “birther” conspiracy theory that President Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen.

Recently, new life got breathed into the birther CT because of an incident which took place a couple of weeks ago at a town hall meeting with Congressman Mike Castle (R) in Delaware.  The town hall was supposed to be about health care reform, but right in the middle of it a woman derailed the entire thing as she spewed the usual birther nonsense…

And shortly afterwards, right-wing gasbag Rush Limbaugh chimed in and jumped aboard the birther bandwagon…

Barack Obama has yet to have to prove that he’s a citizen. All he has to do is show a birth certificate. He has yet to have to prove he’s a citizen.

Here you go Rush, Obama’s certificate of live birth…

And the story has also been picked up by the mainstream media, who seems to be attempting to debunk the CT…

Six months after Barack Obama’s inauguration, a persistent and noisy legion of doubters won’t let go of an already debunked claim — that he is actually a foreign-born, illegal president.The issue has flared again on political blogs, TV news shows and even a town hall meeting, widely circulated on YouTube, in which a Republican congressman was booed for saying Obama is a citizen.

Mainstream Republicans who want the issue to go away are having a tough time stamping it out as the so-called “birthers” resurface, with assists from talk show host Rush Limbaugh and CNN’s Lou Dobbs.

If you want to see something really interesting, check out this footage from an interview between MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy parrots the same old tired & debunked birther claims, and Matthews absolutely demolishes them, even going so far as to show Liddy the actual documents!  Note how Liddy, in true conspiracy theorist fashion, moves the goalposts and engages in some amazing special pleading…

It is absolutely stunning to see Liddy’s response, even when the evidence is put right in front of his face.  Folks, this is cognitive dissonance in action like I’ve never before witnessed – these people are so married to their political ideology & worldview that, rather than admit they and their views lost a legitimate election, they must invent an unbelievably convoluted fiction to justify reality.

So, as we can see from the news coverage, there seems to be trouble on the horizon, definitely for the Republican Party but potentially for the country.  The Republicans are looking at what was once a nutty fringe movement slowly, it seems, taking hold among many of the most dedicated members of their base.  Which means that we could soon see a time when any Republican who, like Rep. Mike Castle, dares to exercise reason & sound judgement and not jump in line with the birthers could find themselves committing political suicide.  So, if these birther types keep getting endorsed by the like’s of Rush Limbaugh, many politicians in the GOP will likely have to start paying them some kind of deference.

And by extension, this could be troublesome for the nation because if these nutters gain a decent foothold within the Republican Party, I can envision all manner of insanity taking place.  Already there are soldiers refusing to follow orders because they claim that Obama’s presidency is “illegitimate”.

Get out the popcorn folks, because this is going to be one interesting show…