The Obama Haters Get a Name: The Birthers

This is good. I'm glad Politico is writing about the most annoying fringe out there, but the story misses the point. Why do they have an irrational hatred of Obama? But I guess that's the point-- it's irrational and therefore, irrelevant, until one of them goes rogue.

Every once in a while I check in with them at their favorite lair.

I'm not sure if they're dangerous (but I'm sure the Secret Service watches them), or just ignorant, but at times, they're very racist. Read their comments on this story here.

I think racism is at the heart of their hatred. These people were literally insulted when Obama became president. In their world, a black man simply cannot be president. So they latched on to the eligibility issue so that they could try to legitimize themselves.

I realize one of the ringleaders, Alan Keyes, is black. But he's got another axe to grind with Obama. For him, it's the sin of jealousy. Keyes ran against Obama for the Senate (read an interesting exchange here).

There is also an element of fighting the "liberal media" and fighting the government (they really hate government) that they view to be all that's wrong with the world. Scapegoating. It's kind of how some republicans have made Hispanic immigrants the root of all evil.

It's mass denial and it's interesting to observe, especially if you have any interest in psychology. This post commenting on Politico's story by one of the members of freerepublic says it all:

Discredit, ridicule the boy who shouted that the King has no clothes, that is the proven Communist method, bought hook, line and sinker by the incurious!

Little do they realize that it is they who drank the Kool-Aid.

Politico's got all the kooks covered, except for pastor Wiley Drake.
Some notables are Orly Taitz, Alan Keyes, Gary Kreep. WorldNetDaily, mentioned in the story, is sort of like that tabloid that always has aliens on the cover.

Politico: Bill Clinton had the Vince Foster "murder." George W. Bush had 9/11 Truth. And the new administration has brought with it a new culture of conspiracy: The Birthers.

Out of the gaze of the mainstream and even the conservative media is a flourishing culture of advocates, theorists and lawyers, all devoted to proving that Barack Obama isn't eligible to be president of the United States. Viewed as irrelevant by the White House, and as embarrassing by much of the Republican Party, the subculture still thrives from the conservative website WorldNetDaily, which claims that some 300,000 people have signed a petition demanding more information on Obama's birth, to Cullman, Alabama, where Sen. Richard Shelby took a question on the subject at a town hall meeting last week.

The story doesn't mention it, but Shelby didn't exactly dismiss the question.

Because they're cowardly, they look to this argument--that he's not legally eligible to be president--as a means of opposing Obama:

"Some individuals and groups who are opposed to Obama's presidency want an 'acceptable' reason to cite to convince other individuals and groups who might be on the fence to join in their way of thinking," said Patricia Turner, who studies rumors at the University of California, Davis. "The notion that his presidency is actually in violation of the Constitution has a fundamentally patriotic appeal."

I'd love to see them at a roundtable. I think if the light was shone on them and they could get some air, some of them might come to their senses.

"At some level, they're not that bad to have around because it reminds people that under the mainstream conservative press there's this bubbling up of really irrational hatred for the guy," said former Clinton White House press secretary Jake Siewert.