When the history of the present period is written—if any bipeds are still around to actually write it—the ‘birther’ movement will take its place next to the mass suicide of the followers of Heaven’s Gate for sheer improbable wackiness. Still, you can’t deny it makes great cable TV for anyone bored with Jerry Springer reruns.
I’m still trying to get over watching MSNBC for the televised naked mud wrestling match between 'birther' Orly Taitz and host David Shuster on the new ‘proof’ that Obama was actually born in Kenya. It was more embarrassing than walking in on your grandparents having sex.
In a normal world Taitz would be institutionalized for her own safety. Instead, she is making herself a celebrity and probably attracting juicy donations to her website from people who still can’t get over last November.
Has anyone picked up on the irony that the spokesperson for the ‘birthers’ herself saw the light of day (however briefly) in the Soviet Union and was permitted to emigrate to Israel where she had privileges awarded her due to her religion, not her birthplace? If she were still there, no doubt she’d be an enthusiastic supporter of Avigdor Lieberman, the recently arrived Moldovan nightclub bouncer who is now the Israeli foreign minister and thinks the Arabs should pledge allegiance to Judaism or leave.
Then there’s the question of how she obtained permission to reside in the United States. One website says she had ‘anchor babies’, that nasty term referring to how foreign women get themselves established here by giving birth on U.S. soil. Now there’s something for Lou Dobbs to take up.
The whole circus says something about the debasement of public discourse engendered by macho cable-news screaming. Shuster and Taitz really looked like mirror images of each other as they railed away oblivious to what the other was saying. Given the way political thought is now produced here, the Taitz spectacle is predictable, and in fact she fits right in. Lunacy is so commonplace that it’s no wonder people are willing to believe that Obama’s health reforms would require you to euthanize Grandma.
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