Arizona Passes Bill Giving Birthers False Hope
Either our signature desert state doesn't know how to handle a conspiracy theory or they're nuttier than a squirrel's pantry. But the birth certificate bill — let's not call it the "birther bill" — that passed the Arizona house today is supposed to, in theory, quash conspiracy nuts in their tracks by proving that presidential candidates were born in the USA. [insert nonsensical Springsteen jibber-jabber]
Backers of the U.S. House version claim that this is just enforcing the Constitutional requirement, but we've gone 230 years without this coming up before. Now that we have a foreign-looking president with a Kenyan daddy and an Indonesian half-sis, suddenly it's a matter of national interest. Therefore, all this seems to accomplish is validate the spooky notion that there's a nationalization conspiracy.
And that's too bad, because no mound of evidence will satiate the birther. Their bread-and-butter, like other "alternative theory champions," is to explain away facts: Anyone could recreate a birth certificate. Look at the ink that was used ... I want to see the original! On, that's the original, you say? Well, you could've created THAT too! I want to see the REAL original!
But it's curious that Arizona got to this first. Let's keep in mind that had their native son John McCain won the 2008 election, a small faction of dissidents would argue that being born on a U.S. base in Panama disqualifies him from being naturalized. This conveniently cuts both ways, since window-licking is an important bipartisan issue.
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