Oh brother, this again?
If you thought 2010 was the future, think again. A phony new email chain letter — one of the antiquated viral sort leftover from the AOL era — is claiming that the case against President Barack Obama’s citizenship has reached the Supreme Court, based on a forged and typo-riddled Associated Press “report.”
The birther movement of angry citizens who believe President Obama was not born in the country and is thus ineligible to be president seemed to lose steam in the year since the 2008 election, but this new email spreading takes the accusations to a new level of ridiculousness based on fake news done poorly.
via Birther Chain Email Uses Fake AP Story To Question Obama’s Citizenship – Mediaite.
This is the main reason why I quit giving that birther crap any space on my blog. Because they know they are wrong. But that will not stop them. What they cannot prove; they make up. Which is horrible, but they are entitled to free speech, like everyone else — like me.
The problem is, there are well-meaning Conservatives, who actually believe this bunch of nonsense. The problem is, not many of them know this theory’s origins; which was on the White Nationalist website, Stormfront. It was then picked up operatives in the Hillary Clinton campaign, and then finally by political operatives within the Republican Party. It was quickly dumped by the Republicans and somewhat by the Hillary people. But it still festers out there. There are some, who are still angry at Obama from the Hillary camp, and some angry Republicans, who still, to this day, forward these e-mails around. It is, as Charles Johnson noted in the interview that I posted, a nuanced racial message, that basically says, “Go back to Africa, nigger!” I will be the first to admit it, there are some racists still in the ranks of Conservatives, especially in the south. Some of these people, at some point may have voted Democrat. Some not. It depends entirely on the person. This is not to say, that they all are, but there are some who hold that well-nuanced feeling towards blacks.
I think one of tragedies of the Conservative Blogosphere is that some of them, including me, got caught up into that birther nonsense. Especially when Orly Taitz started bringing out her “supposed” Birth Certificates. I was burned on that story once; it will never happen again, I can assure you of that. I went as far as to add a retraction to the story and went out of my way to slam that pathetic woman, for even trying to deceive the American people. I also slammed the owner of WorldNetDaily for giving Taitz the space to spout her nonsense too. Most of the rest that covered it, never bothered, and that to me, is a real issue. I mean, if you going to cover a story, at least have the common decency to say that it was a hoax.