Base Attacks

And so it goes: Conservatives who've been slamming Joe Biden for his "in chains" gag are minimizing Mitt Romney's birther gag. Whether intentional or instinctual, both were signals to elements of the parties' bases: Respectively, African-Americans and fantasists.

Nixon Invented The Internet AND Birtherism?

Were Nixonistas the first birthers? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says so:

Mitt's father -- Governor George Romney of Michigan -- was driven to distraction by his own "birther" movement when he ran in the Republican presidential primaries of 1968. Supporters of his opponent, Richard Nixon, argued that George Romney's presidency would be unconstitutional because Romney had been born in Mexico where his grandfather and five wives had fled to evade America's polygamy laws.

Obama Plays The Trump And Loses

I wish I didn't think this, but I do. Donald Trump's now the frontrunner for the GOP nomination -- not because he's on TV all the time, not because he's good copy, not even because his job-creating bona fides could be incredibly appealing to voters.

It's because Barack Obama broke the first rule of incumbency by helping a pretender look like a peer.

Obama and his aides couldn't have dealt his birth certificate more ineptly. I get it that he decided two or three weeks ago, in the midst of the budget debate, that the birthers, thanks to Trump, were drawing people's attention away from matters of substance. Obama deserves credit for the public-spirited gesture of releasing the certificate even though the issue was tying the GOP in knots. But the next, equally important question was when and how to do it.

Congratulations: This morning was the worst possible choice. Isn't there someone at the White House keeping track of potential candidates' public schedules? Didn't it cross anyone's mind that it wouldn't be ideal to have Obama walk into the press room while Trump was giving a press conference about the same issue in New Hampshire?

It didn't help that Trump looked and sounded confident and imperturbable, whereas Obama sounds a little more peeved and scolding every time. Ironic that Obama called Trump a sideshow, because he put him in the center ring.

Big Trumple Brewing

Arizona's governor, Jan Brewer, correctly if somewhat ominously identifies the destructive potential of the birther issue, newly emergent because of the indestructible ego of Donald Trump.

Trump Brand Just Devalued By 50%

If Donald Trump really runs for president, he'll experience a different kind of journalism than he's used to as a daily reader of New York City's tabloids. Here's an example, which includes an answer from a recent deposition in which he admits, well, lying (which is just what he's been accusing the president of doing):

Asked in the deposition about his statements in 2007 that his net worth was $8 billion, Trump conceded: "I don't know. I don't think so. Well, maybe I'm adding 4 or 5 billion dollars worth, 3 billion, for the value of a brand. But I don't know."

Birthers And The Big Lie

Two perspectives on Donald Trump, his accusations against the president, and the latest polls. First, from Jonathan Martin at Politico:

With no other Republican hopefuls gaining traction, Trump has become a blinking neon stand-in for a candidate who will go beyond mainstream boundaries and make the case for why Obama isn’t just a bad president presiding over a declining America but perhaps an illegitimate one.

Trump’s mastery of media culture is what’s landed him at least 24 interviews on national network and cable television since his effective debut as a candidate at CPAC in February, providing him with the blanket media attention that his past presidential flirtations never quite enjoyed. But it’s Birtherism that serves as the rocket fuel launching Trump into presidential orbit.

But then Jim Rutenberg, summarizing a New York Times/CBS News poll on the GOP field, cools Trump's jets:

While that might indicate that there is a receptive audience for the real estate mogul Donald J. Trump as he raises questions about Mr. Obama’s citizenship, the poll also pointed to potential roadblocks for him should he pursue a formal candidacy.

Mr. Trump has been getting considerable attention as a possibly strong contender, but just about as many Republicans view him favorably as view him unfavorably — 35 percent favorably and 32 percent unfavorably— and nearly 60 percent of Republicans interviewed said they did not believe he was a serious candidate. (Far more of all voters view him unfavorably — 46 percent — than view him favorably, 25 percent.)

So birtherism hasn't gotten Trump much traction after all. But now that he's taken it mainstream, all those who have taken the birther pledge should at least be held accountable for what they're really saying. They're accusing Barack Obama of the impeachable offense of stealing the presidency by means of fraud and other crimes. They're telling the world that the U.S. doesn't have a legitimate president.

I suppose that it could be construed as some kind of a well-meaning if totally misguided act of patriotism if a sophisticated elite like Trump really believed it, but if not -- if he or anyone else is just saying it to gain an advantage with the 47% of Republicans who have convinced themselves that Obama is a fraud and usurper -- then they should be kept as far from power as possible. The U.S. doesn't need a home-grown version of the big lie.

Baching Away From The Birthers

Have Donald Trump and Charlie Sheen reduced the political advantage of accusing Barack Obama of a criminal conspiracy to steal the presidency?

Mr. Trump, Your Running Mate Is Calling

Charlie Sheen's a birther, too.

Certifiable Birthers

Andrew Sullivan, godfather of the Palin birthers, misremembers:

Ben Smith argues against [Sarah] Palin's release of a birth certificate because he knows in advance that this would not stop the conspiracy theorists.

For the record, I have simply asked for some medical records establishing maternity since the day I found out about the weirdnesses of the story. If provided, I would regard the question as closed as the Obama birther certificate question. I tried to clear this up privately with the McCain campaign, but they had no clue either. The difference between the two cases, as Ben acknowledges, is that one public figure has provided easily available definitive evidence to end the debate; the other says she has - but hasn't.

Wrong. Sullivan published first, on Aug. 31, 2008, and asked questions later. He should admit that he was wrong to give mainstream credibility to a fabricated story without checking the facts. I'd bet at this point that Palin's refusing just to spite him. Besides, Ben Smith is probably right. Conspiracy theorists eat facts for breakfast.

I Am Not A Liar

Republicans would be wise to heed the advice of a thoughtful political insider:

I think that over the last two and a half years, there’s been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically expedient in the short term for Republicans but creates I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in the general election, where most people feel pretty confident the president was born where he says he was, in Hawaii.

Sarah It Ain't So

One of Sarah Palin's few virtues as a potential presidential candidate was that she refused to take the birther pledge and accuse the president of the U.S. of being a liar and usurper. No more.

This Romney Hasn't Been Brainwashed

Go here to read about a Republican who isn't willing to call the president of the U.S. a liar and usurper to get nominated.
Hat tip to Politico

Trumped

Ann Coulter disses the birthers.

Donald's Doofus Days

When a prominent politician acts like a doofus, someone usually gets around to writing a column saying, pace Otter in "Animal House," "Well, let me tell you about another so-called doofus. His name was Ronald Reagan."

Here's the latest of the genre: Joe Scarbourgh on Donald Trump.

Two flaws in the former congressman's argument. Usually a doofus is just a doofus and not another Reagan. Second, Reagan wasn't a doofus, whereas the usually artful New York tycoon is acting like one by insisting that the president of the U.S. is a liar and usurper.

It's one thing to get yourself a little birther cred, which may be the price of admission for the GOP nomination in 2012 (though getting a birther elected is another matter). But Trump seems to be making it the centerpiece of his campaign. Is he being opportunistic, perhaps on the advice of his longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone, or does he really believe it? If the latter, I hope it wasn't because someone showed him this.

As for Trump's running second in GOP polls, I bet that's mostly name recognition. Read Stone's own perspective here.

Trump Plays The Birther Card

Donald Trump, on The View today, said that the president's "probably" a U.S. citizen, then added:

There's something on that birth certificate he doesn't like.

Trump's absolutely right. Barack Obama's birth certificate contains irrefutable evidence that he was born in Honolulu. That's why we'll never see it. Refusing to provide additional proof that Trig Palin is Sarah's son (Oops! Wrong conspiracy) he's a citizen is Obama's smartest move, guaranteeing that some likely Republican candidates (such as Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee and now, it appears, Trump) will continue to maneuver for the birther majority among likely GOP voters. Listening to a birther nominee try to defend (or back away from) the broadly unpopular birther position during the first presidential debate in the fall of 2012 would be the Obama campaign's happiest moment.

Nixon political confidante Roger Stone (above right) has been advising Trump for 25 years, so it's safe to assume he's helping with the talking points. Adding a dollop of birther cred to Trump's good-natured, tolerant populism is the kind of move that enabled Stone to outmaneuver Nixon in-law Ed Cox and engineer the GOP nomination of another plain-spoken loose cannon of a tycoon, Carl Paladino, to run for governor of New York in 2008.

The GOP's Birther Millstone

The latest likely GOP candidates to take steps to burnish their credibility with the Obama birthers? Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee. They're also now the candidates with the strongest "positive intensity" among Republican voters.

Sarah Smile

Good for the ex-governor. Scrambling to the left of Birther Bachmann, Sarah Palin says flatly that she doesn't question the president's faith and citizenship.

Man From Hawaii, Woman From Mars

I'm among those who believe that President Obama should do nothing more to prove he's a U.S. citizen. The hospital where he was born in Honolulu has properly certified the blessed event. If he provided a massive corroborating file tomorrow, the Birthers would claim that rogue FBI agents had fabricated it in secret labs in the White House basement.

No, Mr. President, leave it alone. It's a no-win issue -- for Republicans.

Michele Bachmann is the latest likely 2012 GOP candidate to take the official Birther pledge. The coded language goes like this: "It's not for me to say that Obama was born in the United States and is a Christian. That's for him to say." It means she's read the new poll revealing that 51% of likely GOP primary voters believe the president's not a U.S. citizen.

Her difficulty is that at most 20% of Americans are living the fantasy, only 14% with any conviction. Those, presumably, would be Bachmann's eagerly sought-after primary voters. Say she (gulp) wins the nomination and is standing on a stage with the president and gets the Birther question. Does she repudiate the pledge and outrage her base or repeat it, thereby amusing, outraging, or even losing great swathes of the 86%?

Plus he'd get to say, "Michele, people tell me all the time you're from Mars, but I refuse to make a campaign issue out of it."

The Burden Of The Birthers

Half the Republican Party is confused:

According to [a new] poll, 51 percent of those likely to vote in a GOP primary in the next election cycle adhere to the conspiracy theory suggesting the president was born outside the United States and therefore is ineligible to serve.

Will the 2012 nominee have to cop to this? If so, how will he or she manage to get elected?

Birther Pangs

CNN's Anderson Cooper vs. an Obama birther, Texas GOP state Rep. Leo Berman. Cooper wins, to put it mildly.