Guardian UK: Birthers are citizens of Idiot America

Birthers are citizens of Idiot America
The media must stop pandering to the conspiracy theorists who are challenging Barack Obama's US citizenship

Dan Kennedy
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 July 2009


Just because there are people who believe some mighty peculiar things doesn't mean I'm obliged to pay them any attention. After all, there are folks who are convinced that the moon landing was a hoax, that Israel was behind the World Trade Center attacks and that the US government has been covering up the truth about the crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico, for the past six decades. Not every ludicrous notion is worth the mental energy it would take to debunk it.

Which brings me to the Birthers – rightwing conspiracy theorists who insist that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and is thus constitutionally unqualified to serve as president. I had assumed they'd gone away last year, after the Obama campaign posted the then-candidate's birth certificate on the internet. But conspiracy theories are a matter of faith, not fact. So I shouldn't have been surprised when the Birthers rose up anew recently, receiving a respectful hearing from the likes of CNN talkshow host Lou Dobbs and various Republican congressmen.

But there's a difference between the loony ideas of yore and their latter-day incarnations. What had once been relegated to the fringes is now front and centre. The penniless cranks have given way to well-dressed strategists with expense accounts. The transformative agent: our corrupt and malign media culture.

I am in debt to Charles Pierce, whose fine new book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, explains how talk radio, cable news shows and, too often, less dubious sectors of the media have built the promulgation of foolishness into a growth business. (Disclosure: Pierce, a staff writer for the Boston Globe Magazine and a well-known freelancer, is a friend of mine.) ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/29/birthers-obama-citizenship-republicans

But they're too much the worthless bags of excrement to step up to the plate and do that.

from some one who , as do most of you , regard your MSM as somewhat less than pathetic.

the GOP. Not that they already aren't fully entrenched or something.

Maybe we'll get some sympathy now.