I don’t know about you, but the word “birther” has made my month. As recently as last week I had no idea what to call these crazy weirdos. You’d have to settle for something like, “hillbillies and sometimes senators who don’t think Barack Obama’s an American,” which doesn’t fit very nicely into a Newser summary.
But now we have a word for them, a gloriously mean and mocking word, no doubt devised by some liberal blogger hiding in a liberal snark cave. And frankly? It’s the best thing that ever happened to the misbegotten “movement.”
People have been muttering these crazy theories since before the election, but they didn’t get much press, as though the media secretly decided on a “don’t feed the wackos” policy. But now that we have a catchy nickname for them? Forget it, the floodgates have been opened.
The entire concept’s been boiled down to one perfectly incendiary headline-ready word. Language has given the concept form, and allowed it to run wild through our national conversation. The birthers are getting air time—and traction—they could only have dreamed of before.
Let’s get something straight. This isn’t a “controversy.” There’s nothing remotely controversial about it. Obama’s citizenship is a
documented fact. This is just a perfectly constructed symphony of goofy political noise. Ask yourself, do you really care if
Lou Dobbs thinks Obama was born in a rowboat somewhere? What difference could it possibly make?
None, of course, but it’s fun to call the guy a birther! It makes it sound like he’s helping Amish women deliver babies or something. And so liberals, incensed by just how stupid—and it has to be said, racist—the whole thing is,
pile on. And conservatives, powerless to wholly resist such a lovely faerie tale, rush to his defense. A kerfluffle is born.
It helps, of course, that conservative lawmakers are catering to these people as though they’re some kind of “base” they dare not anger. Listen, guys, just because some lunatics set up camp on the farthest shores of your side of the political spectrum doesn’t make them your base. With foundations like that, you don’t need wrecking balls.
Nothing will ever come of this. It’s not like if
Bill Posey passes his law Obama will throw up his hands and say, “You got me, I’m French.” It’s just partisan entertainment, a low farce of about as much import as the fates of Jon and Kate.
Look, I’m not trying to spoil anyone’s fun. There’s nothing wrong with ridiculing Bill Posey, who still, by the way, has some serious questions to answer about his own lineage. And trust us, when Lou Dobbs does something like call Rachel Maddow a
“tea-bagging queen,” Newser will be all over it.
Just don’t forget that somewhere under this political clown show there’s an actual government being run. Maybe health care reformers need some mean but snappy nicknames.
