The Sunshine Empire

The interesting matter when it comes to the birther movement in the Republican party is less about the core crazies that buy into this batty garbage, it’s the other more mainstream members of the Republican party who will say that they pretty much believe that President Obama was born in the United States but that there are still questions. They ride an interesting political line that keeps them in reality on paper, but keeps up any vestige of illegitimacy when it comes to Obama. Many of them will hide in the details of the story to insinuate that although they have no doubts, there is plenty of smoke there that needs to be addressed.

A good example of this is Andrew McCarthy’s editorial in National Review Online. Last week the collective group of editors and writers at NRO published an editorial that said enough was enough when it came to the birther nonsense. McCarthy was one of those that signed off on the editorial and even states in his story today that he saw the initial draft and had no problems with it, until now. The angle seems to be now that all the birther nonsense is actually the fault of one Barack H. Obama of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In essence Obama, who’s written not one but two memoirs, is being too secretive. Mark Krikorian goes so far as to call him Nixonian, which after 8 years of George W. Bush made me literally fall out of my chair. But this supposed secrecy is what brings on the questions. So the issue is not the issue by the secrecy is. House Minority Whip and foppish southern gentleman Eric Cantor says it’s actually liberal bloggers causing it for calling bullshit on wing-nuts. I was told today that I was a little too obsessed with the issue. So I guess the birther movement is my fault. Bill Maher puts it best in his L.A. Times editorial today, “Why, in this country, is it always the religious right that won’t take anything on faith?”