I’m ashamed to say that, in a moment of hyperpartisan blindness, I dabbled in the birth certificate trutherness in the beginning. As Michelle Malkin says, however, it’s getting absolutely ridiculous. Her article is a breath of fresh air and a reality check for those who continue to take part in trutherism.
Alas, Trutherism thrives on both the left and right. Which brings us to the spate of lawsuits challenging President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court considers one of those suits filed by New Jersey citizen Leo Donofrio, who maintains that Obama is not a “natural born citizen” because his father held British citizenship.
There may be a seed of a legitimate constitutional issue to explore here (how is the citizenship requirement enforced for presidential candidates, anyway?) And at least Donofrio concedes that Obama was born in Hawaii. But a dangerously large segment of the birth certificate hunters have lurched into rabid Truther territory. The most prominent crusader against Obama’s American citizenship claim, lawyer Philip
Berg (who, not coincidentally, is also a prominent 9/11 Truther), disputes that Obama was born in Hawaii and claims that Obama’s paternal grandmother told him she saw Obama born in Kenya.
Berg and his supporters further assert that the “Certification of Live Birth” produced by Obama was altered or forged. They claim that the contemporaneous birth announcement in a Hawaii newspaper of Obama’s birth is insufficient evidence that he was born there. (Did a fortune-teller place it in the paper knowing he would run for president?). And they accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being part and parcel of the grand plan to install Emperor Obama and usurp the rule of law.
Indeed. A note to those eager to hook their wagon to the Berg train: Berg is, in fact, a 9/11 truther who blames the Bush Administration for the attacks. His motivation in this particular case is that he supported Hillary Clinton in her fight against Obama. I’d advise staying away from him.
by Stephan Tawney on Fri, Dec 5, 2008