The media calls it the “birther” movement. This is a polite way of saying there is a group of treasonous mental patients in tin foil hats running around griping that their president is not an American citizen. “Birthers” claim Obama never showed his birth certificate, even though the evidence of his citizenship is available for all to see, and has been verified by the state of Hawaii. These nuts apparently think that Obamas parents, as well as the government of Hawaii, conspired 30 years ago to fake Obamas birth in order to win the presidency in the future. 

There are videos online of people interrupting Democrats and Republicans during town hall meetings. At one such event, a Sarah Palin look alike, who probably had a rope and a white hood in the trunk of her car, hijacked a Delaware Republicans town hall meeting with accusations that the Delaware Senator was taking part in the great conspiracy to make sure a Kenyan citizen became the President “of this here” United States. The notion was oddly supported by most of the crowd. Palin’s clone went as far as verbally coercing people into performing the pledge of allegiance. Within seconds everyone in the town hall meeting was standing, almost on instinct, ready to recite the pledge of allegiance like “good Germans.”  Some looked scared, but did it anyway. They did not want to end up being the one accused of treason. I’m not against the pledge but what did it have to do with health care reform?

 What is going on here?  Obviously no one has to support the President and his policies but to claim he is not even a citizen is lunacy. It is worse than calling him a “Socialist.” The term “Socialist” is at least a political attack, and not an attack on someone’s allegiance to the country they were born in. I never doubted Bush’s love of his America, just condemned his use of illegal detention and torture, as well as his warrantless wiretapping, and his falsification of intelligence to support the Iraq war.  I however never denied his citizenship.

The media, including Lou Dobbs, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, are all responsible for giving legitimacy to this conspiracy theory. They don’t care that pushing this idea puts the President’s very life at risk by giving reason to some Oswald wannabe, who ran out of rope and bleach for his sheets, to go off and kill the president out of some misplaced patriotic duty.

I received an email recently asking me how many of our state and local representatives would answer the following questions: Do you believe that President Obama was born in the United States? Do you believe that a "death panel" is included in the health care reform being considered? Do you believe that President Obama is a racist? I hope that the answer to all of the above would be a definite no. To remain silent on these questions is almost as dangerous as responding in the affirmative.