When I think back to the Clinton years it took the right years to get to the Clintons-Killed-Vincent-Foster place. I can't even imagine where they're going to be 2-3 years from now.

See? If this is a concerted effort or just the crazy boiling over, I'm not sure if it's a cause worth to analyzing. It's speaking-in-tongues made-up nonsensical pig-latin.

I will say this: whatever it is they're up to, you can betcha they're not wearing those damned flag pins anymore. Funny how fair-weather patriotism disappears when the bastards lose.

This morning I received a chain email proclaiming that Obama should not be allowed to live out his 4 year term or should at least be impeached.

The reason. "A spokesman for General James Cartwright, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, states that the Obama Administration wants to have soldiers and officers pledge a loyalty oath directly to the office of the President, and no longer to the Constitution."

It took about 3 minutes to debunk this crap. I did a 'reply to all' and sent 3 links showing that this originated from a web site where the author stated that it was satire.

Being who I am, I gave an explanation that this is typical of the Reich-Wing taking a lie (or satire) and proclaiming it to be the truth. These are always good to provoke the indignant outrage of those who want to hear and believe anything negative about Obama.

Within 5 minutes I received a response from one person of "Look you fucking communist! I can't wait to see the day when people like you are hung."

My point is that there are probably 20% of the American populace that will believe any lie and disbelieve any truth that does not fit what they want to believe about Obama. They are not going to be satisfied as long as Obama is still alive! There is a lot of danger from the angry mob and all of these crazies compound the problem.

Steve, the ReRushlickins do look insane but just remember how many insane voters are sadly still out there. (BTW is it true "it wouldn't hurt" for Obama to release a more direct copy of the BC just to make it easier for him?)
BTW' take more care typing, earlier you first said "this recent pathetic display against Pelosi says far more about her than it does about the Speaker." before changing it "her" to "them". Here, you wrote "which would make conservatively look hopelessly ridiculous" instead of "conservatives." It's NBD, but a site comes across more convincingly when error-checked.

It takes real dough to change all of those "Get the US out of the UN" billboards.

For years, a right wing billboard along side of I-5 in Chehalis, WA has been required reading for comic relief. Whenever, there is a lull in the cob webbed mind of the owner, ye olde standby "US out of the UN" goes up.

It's easy to channel Eli Wallach: "If God hadn't wanted them to be sheared, He wouldn't have made them sheep," except that these sheep have too much ammo and too few meds.

SadOldVet, that person sending you that hate e-mail probably really really wants to see anyone who is "hung".

BTW is it true "it wouldn't hurt" for Obama to release a more direct copy of the BC just to make it easier for him?

Probably not. I've seen some of the birther blogsites and the answers would be:

(a) it's a forgery.
(b) it wouldn't matter anyway because Obama is a British citizen throguh his father / an Indonesian citizen through his stepfather / not a natural-born citizen because one parent was not American (even though there is nothing in the Constitution that defines a natural-born citizen as the child of 2 citizens)

These are people who can say that the Hawaiian government's acknowledgment that it has Obama's birth certificate is evidence that he was not born in Hawaii. Any kind of convoluted rationale comes easier than the truth to a conspiracist.

Besides, bowing to the demands of these nutcases would open the door to all kinds of nonsense. They'd move onto something else next. These are not people who would be satisfied with the real thing, is what I'm saying. They're talking about the Illuminati being behind this now. And once they see that they can bait Obama into a reaction, there'd be no stopping them.

Obama would do best to stay above the fray, ignore them and let people wonder how anyone could think that a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who survived a tough presidential campaign has not already been thoroughly vetted by people who know how to do this.

As pointed out in comments at Cole's place, these people also claim that the birth announcement in the Honolulu paper is fake.

Okay - we are seeing another example of a con-game perpetuated by the Republican party. The "snake-oil" the cons are trying to sell in this case are billboards around the country which ask "Where's the birth certificate?"

I see they raised $45,000 in just five days. Smart tactic by the "cons." They get the money, and who know when or if these billboards will every come into existence.

SadOldVet, I would classify that response as a serious threat to yourself. The original email was a threat against the life of the president. Seems to me like info the FBI should have.

LOLWingnuts

If the Left wants to look ridiculous, they'll continue to engage the most radical loonie wingnuts like Benen just did. Doesn't anyone remember LBJ's famous old saying about spreading ridiculous lies, he just wanted to hear them deny it? As long as the wingnuts continue to get a rise out of gullible "defenders of the truth" like Benen, they are winning. STFU.

SadOldVet,

I agree with Chopin. Threats against the President are quite serious.

While I think this whole not born in America thing is ridiculous, just remember what the Bush administration taught us:

A lie repeated over and over becomes accepted truth.

Note to progressives: That is what American populism looks like.

I worry that we will have more and more nonsense like this in the future if we don't do something abou that silly "natural born" phrase in the Constitution.

Any U.S. citizen of age should be able to serve as President.

Virginia, I disagree. The 'natural born' phrase is not the least bit "silly," it's a loyalty test, and it's a damn good idea.

High ideals are nice and all, but the American people have fears that will not be ignored.

That some wing-nuts are spreading lies isn't news.

As long as the wingnuts continue to get a rise out of gullible "defenders of the truth" like Benen, they are winning.

So let me see if I have this right -- broadcasting the true insanity of these guys for all to see is "engaging them" and letting them "win." Got it...

Look, I know the point you're trying to make, but the crucial difference is in the believability of the lie. If I were to go around insisting that the moon is made of green cheese and that Obama is covering up this crucial source of nutrition that would end hunger in America as we know it, Benen would not be "engaging me" to point out I'm a nutcase, nor would he be letting me "win."

Charlie don't surf: I'm afraid your method has already been tried. By John Kerry, to be specific, when the Swift Boat liars started spreading easily debunked smears about his war record. He assumed that any halfway competent journalist could find the correct information in five seconds, and would do so. He did not calculate with what American "journalism" had become since 2001.

SadOldVet -- and the winger email you received seems particularly ironic considering that during the hearings on the US Attorneys scandal, White House political director testified that she "took an oath to the president."

(er, that should be "White House political director Sara Taylor.)

I'm afraid that, as detached from reality as these guys are, their crazy conspiracy isn't quite insane enough to really come across in these bewildering times. I think we need to co-opt it and 'turn it up to 11' so to speak. We need to start embellishing their theories with elements like ... well, there is a birth certificate, but it's held in a vault at a government facility inside the hollow earth, which can only be reached by a passage from the North Pole, and the real reason Obama is against global warming is that the entrance will soon be revealed if the ice cap continues to melt.

You know, crazy nutjob stories can actually be a lot of fun, once you get over that "have to have some connection to reality" bias.

trex, there is one difference in these two scenarios: Obama won. There is no point in even acknowledging the existence of sore losers. They know they've lost, this is just a Parthian Shot, they just want to get a rise out of you.

I've never rented a billboard so I don't know what it costs, but in terms of fundraising, $45,000 strikes me as not very much.

A newspaper ad in my little community bi-weekly rag costs $400 for a full-page. That's a paper that reaches maybe 6,000 people, every other week. In the L.A. Times, ad rates are around $900 per inch.

Billboards reach far more people. The rates must be enormous. And you're also paying for design and production.

I don't think their $45,000 is going to go far.

Old Russian saying...You can tell same lie 1000 time but not change truth!

Difference between USSR Communist media and USA "mainstream media"

In Russia government make media say what they want - even if lie.
In USA "mainstream media" try make government what they want - even if lie..
.....eventually they become same thing?!

I Igor produce Obama Birth Certificate at www.igormaro.org

Helping fools to be fools can be kicks. Maybe we should contribute to the billboard fund...

I miss the IMPEACH EARL WARREN billboards. His crime, if you remember, was racially integrating the public schools.

The White House should cut a deal. They will agree to produce Obama's birth certificate, if the GOP will agree to produce the military records of GW Bush.

nearly 400,000 names of Americans demanding answers as to Obama's elidibility [sic]....

'Cause I've been wondering quite a bit about the President's elidability. I mean, have you ever tried to leave him out of a sentence?

• I bet the director of Governor Lingle (R-HI)'s Department of Health totally made up the story about having personally reviewed President ...'s birth certificate.

• A birth announcement for ... in an August 13, 1961 edition of the Honolulu Advertiser? As if!
• Obviously ...'s parents were scheming to get him into the White House from Day One!

See? Those sentences are crazy. So Obama's elidability is in very legitimate question.

Q.E.D.

I'm afraid your method has already been tried. By John Kerry, to be specific, when the Swift Boat liars started spreading easily debunked smears about his war record

The analogy with the Swift Boaters doesn't really hold true. The Swift Boaters were able to take actual events and twist them so that they could be seen in a different light. Those medals that Kerry was so proud of ... they could claim he wangled them himself, for actions that didn't deserve commendation. And they were fellow veterans which gave them some gravitas.

The birthers on the other hand are crazy. Really, you should hit some of their sites to see classic manifestations of conspiracism: the paranoia, the projection, the conviction that everyone is in on the scam. If an authority figure appears to regard Obama as legitimate, then that authority is in on it -- or blackmailed or in fear of their life. That includes SCOTUS, CIA, FBI, Congress, Senate and the Pentagon by the way. The more these people are exposed, the more ridiculous they appear.

So the best way to fight this is for Obama to ignore it and for the rest of us to laugh. Obama doesn't need to acknowledge these people anymore than he needs to acknowledge the nuts who think Bush orchestrated 9/11. Some of these are the same people, by the way.

Except, MaryRC,
9/11 happened on Bush's Watch Have you heard anyone take responsibilty for that??

The DNC ought to send WND a thank-you note.

Perhaps we should send them a few meager contributions of our own, just to keep their morale up. ;-)

That reminds me, time to send another check to the Club for Growth.

"By John Kerry, to be specific, when the Swift Boat liars started spreading easily debunked smears about his war record."

One of those swiftboaters is one of the bigger birthers. Sam Sewell. Goes by "Aristotle The Hun". That's his name at the SwiftBoat Forum, as well as at his "the Steady Drip" Anti-Obama site. He's big into those fake grand juries that have been "indicting" Obama. I think there's more to that guy.

It is my belief that a large number of birthers know that it is nonsense. They don't care.

"trex, there is one difference in these two scenarios: Obama won. There is no point in even acknowledging the existence of sore losers. They know they've lost, this is just a Parthian Shot, they just want to get a rise out of you."

Uh, if you really think they know that they lost, then you haven't been paying attention. Go to any fringe wing-nut website and look around. They insist they didn't lose, because there was a massive voting fraud conspiracy (involving ACORN, of course) which robbed them of the election. They insist that Obama's presidency is illegitimate and that they represent the majority of America.