Liz Cheney Tries to Defend the Birthers
Salon.com's Joan Walsh writes that Liz Cheney, appearing on Larry King's TV show, defended the "birther" movement, which insists that Barack Obama is not a natural-born U.S. and thus should not be president. King apparently showed the video I wrote about yesterday, of GOP moderate Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware getting yelled at and booed by wingnuts. Then, Walsh writes,
and after Carville denounced them as a "poor, pathetic" fringe group, King gave Cheney a chance to distance herself from them. But Cheney demurred, telling King the Birther movement exists because "People are uncomfortable with a president who is reluctant to defend the nation overseas."
Seriously? Might someone point out to her that the birther movement predates the Obama presidency?
Apparently the Castle video is giving the media an in on reporting on the birthers. Chris Matthews featured it on Hardball this evening as well, dissecting Rep. John Campbell, a California Republican. Campbell is co-sponsoring a bill that requires presidential candidates to prove that they were born in the United States. He makes the, ahem, argument that the bill is not a sop to the wing-nuts in his party, but that it's just meant to clear up (presumably legitimate) confusion on the matter. "Wouldn't you want to know that, that they meet those requirements before they run?" he asked.
Well two points. One is that I thought conservatives opposed things like hate crime laws because they are redundent. The Constitution already says that you have to be a citizen. So at best all this law would do is demand that presidential candidates prove that they are not guilty of fraud or unconstitutional behavior. Innocent until proven guilty ... unless you've got a foreign-sounding name?
But of course I make the mistake of assuming rationality when talking about what is in fact either irrationality or cheap hucksterism. Matthews had it right when he told Campbell, "You are playing to the crazies."
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Tags: Republicans | Barack Obama | Chris Matthews
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Reader Comments
Go Birthers !
Go Birthers !
Keep up the nonsense Republicans !
It's great to watch you drive deeper and deeper into the political wilderness and FURTHER reinforce your status as the Appalachian Party.
Go Birthers ! Go Tea Baggers !
When in a hole, stop digging for Christ´s sake
Some people can´t accept a lose no matter what. Many see their mother´s ghost or his totaled car in every corner. Is that infamous phase of denial.
Well, these people lost and we won. They can´t accept it and will look for ghosts around every corner and refuse to see reality. Factcheck.org did the research so we didn´t have to.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
If no one came up with proof that Obama wasn´t born in the USA by now, we deserve Obama. Make it a gift from God.
DOW from 6k to 9k, thank you God.
Crazies of America (with nothing better to do)
Let me make my comment sound a bit better: Liz Cheney and her father are two rotten apples America can do without. Again, I can tell who the birther/fringe people are commenting on this site. It's very sad. Not really solving any issues are we? Nope, we'll waste our time with things like this...literally, made up, fantasies like this imagined from the desperate, far right to gain power and start ruining the country again. Please, sit on it so the rest of us can fix our country and move on from the fiasco of the last eight years that led to the terrible mess we're in...the mess Liz and her father helped create!
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