The Birthers: Racist Claptrap Run Amok

by Pa Rock
Social Observer

Conspiracy theories have a life of their own. They are nurtured and promoted by a group of believers who see any attempt to refute their beliefs, silly as they may be, as intentional disinformation generated to keep the official cover-up in place. There is no amount of truth or facts that can kill a conspiracy theory because the believers aren’t open to any ideas that challenge or refute their unique views.

An old army buddy of mine lives out in the Oregon woods where he has raised milk goats and philosophized for the past several decades. He enjoys a primitive lifestyle without many of the things most of us would regard as necessities, such as electricity and running water, but he does have a phone so we chat every couple of years. Last year we were catching up over the phone when my friend began talking about the destruction of the World Trade Center. The towers weren’t brought down by high-jacked passenger planes, he said calmly – they were blown up. It was an inside job. Our government brought down those buildings in order to have an excuse to go to war in the Middle East. Study the pictures, he implored me, study the pictures!

The World-Trade-Center-as-an-Inside-Job was the conspiracy theory de jour for the past couple of years. It followed closely on the heels of the Hillary-Killed-Vince-Foster conspiracy theory, one which just sort of petered out when the Clinton’s left the White House. But now we have moved on to something new: birtherism – the notion that Barack Obama was born outside of the United States and is therefore ineligible to be President. A variant of that is that only one of his parents was an American citizen and he is therefore, by virtue of the shameful Dred Scott decision of 1859 which was later overturned, not a natural born citizen, and therefore ineligible to be President.

It would be nice if America could just forget about the birthers. But their outrage is very real and very personal, and they have the potential to incite grievous harm. A black liberal is sitting in the Oval Office, and the only way to save the America that they know and love is to deny this usurper his legitimacy and drive him from office. The birthers are pissed off and vocal. They are being enabled by some devious Republican politicians and a handful of rightwing media personalities. Their quest is Quixotic, but even a hopeless crusade carries the potential for tragedy. It only takes one malcontent and one bullet to destroy a democratic mandate and inexorably alter the course of history.

The “head” of the birther movement, or at least the person who stays busiest on the cause and infuses most of the drama, is a lady dentist from southern California by the name of Orly Taitz. Ms. Taitz immigrated to the United States in the 1980’s from Moldavia (then part of the Soviet Union) by way of Israel. She has a law degree that she received from an on-line university – which enables her to stay busy filing legal briefs relating to the birther movement – though people who have witnessed these legal filings say that often she just drops off boxes of rambling papers at various courthouses and then rushes on down the road to incite whatever rabble awaits her.

Ms. Taitz, who is quickly offended when anyone disparages her, for instance by referring to her as a “birther” or, worse yet, a “birfer,” isn’t shy about using her own sharp tongue to lash out at anyone who gets in her way or questions her motives (or sanity). Someone who deigns to point out the fallacies in her specious arguments is automatically an “Obama thug.”

The company that Ms. Taitz keeps is less than stellar, and undoubtedly serves to keep the wackiness reinforced. One of her main lieutenants is Wiley Drake, a fundamentalist radio beggar who gained notoriety a few weeks ago for admitting that he prays for the death of President Obama. Drake ran for vice-president on the American Independent under Alan Keyes.

Philip Berg is another prominent member of the Birther family. Berg was a former Democratic official and office holder in Maryland who spent quite a bit of time suing the Bush Administration over the destruction of the World Trade Center which, according to him, was an inside job. Berg filed suit against the Democratic National Committee in 2008 trying to block its endorsement of Barack Obama. His case was thrown out of court.

A third mentor to Ms. Taitz is Robert Shulz, a tax cheat who used to host a web site telling people how to “legally” avoid paying payroll taxes – until a judge shut him down. Shulz ran two full page ads in the Chicago Tribune last December ordering President-Elect Obama to hand over certain documents relating to his birth and legal ability to serve as President. He held a news conference at which the President-elect was to bow before the Almighty Shulz and present him with the “proof” of his ineligibility. Not surprisingly, Obama didn’t show, but Taitz and Berg did – and the loony cabal was born.

Here is the crux of the birther blather: 1. There is reportedly a recording and transcript of Obama’s grandmother saying that she witnessed his birth in Africa. 2. Forensic “experts” have set up web pages and signed affidavits saying that his Certificate of Live Birth is a forgery. 3. Hawaiian law allows foreign-born children to obtain an Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth. And, 4. Obama traveled to Pakistan in 1981, although at the time there was a ban or American passport holders going there.



Orly Taitz is little more than a pawn in this drama, albeit a completely willing pawn. The real culprits are the ones making money off of keeping the controversy alive: The World Net Daily, Fox News, and the usual suspects of O’Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, and Lou Dobbs. Surprisingly, Ann Coulter has distanced herself from the birther crowd, and Dobb’s network, CNN, has labeled it a “non-story.” The late William F. Buckley's conservative publication, National Review Online, has also stated that this "movement" is not based on reality.

Ms. Taitz got herself invited onto the Lou Dobbs show expecting a friendly reception for herself and her fantasies. Unfortunately for her, Dobbs chose that night to be absent, and his guest host ripped Orly a new one. Dobbs has since signed onto the birther crusade, causing his audience to decline by 15% and several major sponsors to drop his program from their advertising plan.

Last week Orly Taitz took imbecility to a new height when she produced Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate. The document had enough glaring errors that it was quickly labeled a forgery by even some of her supporters. It turned out to be the birth certificate of an Australian man that had been doctored to resemble an official Kenyan document. If Ms. Taitz had credibility, it certainly evaporated with that stunt. Rumor has it that due to that stunt, the state of California is now looking at the possibility of disbarring the Birther Queen.

So, yes, there is a great deal of deception taking place on the subject of where the President was born. The problem is, at least for the birthers, their leaders are the ones practicing that deception.

Patrick McKinnion of Yes to Democracy thinks it is more than simple deception. He said, “There’s a certain amount of fascination with unbridled insanity, and that’s what you’re seeing with the birthers: a level of hatred that borders, if not absolutely pole-vaults, into insanity.”

The birthers are small minded bigots, primarily Republican (56%) and from the South (69%), who cannot accept that the nation has elected a black President. They are like the very emotional and angry woman who showed at Congressman Castle’s town hall meeting in Delaware. When she finished yelling and screaming about how unfair it was that Obama was getting to serve as President, she broke down and sobbed, “I just want my country back!”

Sorry, honey. It’s not your country – it’s our country. We are a democratic society and our leaders are elected by all of us. You lost this time. Maybe your luck will improve next time, but I certainly hope not. America needs to leave the scourge of racism in its dark and desolate past and move on into a brighter future.