Mark Weigel reads a note from the kook pews, and takes it apart…line by line…

Another question yet to be resolved is whether Mr. Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States, a prerequisite pursuant to the U.S. Constitution. There is evidence Mr. Obama was born in Kenya rather than, as he claims, Hawaii.

What evidence? We have a newspaper announcement of Obama’s birth in Hawai’i from 1961, and we have a Hawai’ian certificate of live birth. Obama did have Kenyan citizenship until he turned 21; as the son of Barack Obama, Sr, it was automatic. And it did not negate his American citizenship.

There is also a registration document for a school in Indonesia where the would-be president studied for four years, on which he was identified not only as a Muslim but as an Indonesian.

Here’s the document. It does identify Obama as a Muslim and identifies Indonesia as his "nation of citizenship," but that’s what his parents wrote down on their seven-year old son’s school form. If Gaffney thinks this negates Obama’s American citizenship, he doesn’t understand the law.

If correct, the latter could give rise to another potential problem with respect to his eligibility to be president.

Completely false. The document lists Honolulu as Obama’s "place and date of birth."

Curiously, Mr. Obama has, to date, failed to provide an authentic birth certificate which could clear up the matter.

False. I’ll link it again. Unless Gaffney believes that the state of Hawai’i is forging documents for Obama, this is proof that he was born in Honolulu.

This is fever swamp, Vince Foster-was-murdered, Bush-blew-up-the-WTC stuff…

Yes…isn’t it.  Oh…but look…it isn’t some babbling nutcase churning this stuff out from his parent’s basement…

Neoconservative pundit Frank Gaffney, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense, has bid adieu to polite society with this column on "the Jihadist vote."

Let me repeat that: Former Deputy Assistant Secretary Of Defense.  These are the folks who have been running the country for the past, oh, Eight Years.  The debacles that are Iraq, Katrina and the national economy starting to make sense now?  Here…let me explain something to you…  No…Wait…  Let Them explain something to you…

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

-Ron Suskind, Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush

This isn’t just the heart of the Bush presidency…it’s the heart of the republican grassroots.  ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore”…  Actually…yes it is…

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  They are not entitled to their own facts.  Lies have consequences.  The erosion of trust has consequences.  You can’t just keep on making things up and expect nothing to come of it…  When stocks become worthless, markets fail.  When the word of the people becomes worthless, democracy fails.

UPDATE: Later in the column Gaffney cites Pennsylvania attorney Philip Berg, who’s filed a frivolous lawsuit against Obama on this citizenship conspiracy theory. That would be this Philip Berg.

Now, it is time for world leaders to take the lesson learned from Iraq and issue a warrant for the arrest of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney; arrest them; take them to a neutral country; try them for the murder of over 2,800 people from more than 80 countries on 9/11/01 and, when found guilty, sentence them appropriately. Jurisdiction would be proper in any of the more than 80 countries whose citizens were murdered on 9/11.

I compared Gaffney’s nonsense to 9/11 trutherism for a reason.

UPDATE II: This is pathetic: a Toledo station runs a "local hero"-type story on Berg, which puts legal documents from Hawai’i on equal footing with his fact-free claims. It’s mind-boggling. On the one hand you have a government certificate that says Obama was born at 7:24 p.m. on 8/4/61 in Honolulu. On the other you have Berg’s claim, from his lawsuit:

Obama’s grandmother on his father’s side, his half-brother and half-sister all claim Obama was born not in Hawaii but in Kenya.  Reports reflect that Obama’s mother traveled to Kenya during her pregnancy; however, she was prevented from boarding a flight from Kenya to Hawaii at her late stage of pregnancy (which, apparently, was a normal restriction, to avoid births during a flight).

Notice the distinct lack of quotes and sources? It’s because the "Obama’s African family members claim he was born in Kenya" story is an internet myth. They have never claimed that. There is no such story. Go ahead and try to find it.

An internet myth.  Note that.  It’s what the grassroots are saying.  To each other.  Among other things.  Over and over.  Obama is a Muslim.  Obama has ties to al Qaeda.  Obama is a traitor.  Obama is a terrorist.  So it is, that the republican grassroots take their collective consciences around behind the barn and shoot it.  Anything to win, even if it means taking a running bellyflop into the gutter.  But it’s not just Obama they are hurling bullshit shit at.  They are taking a dump on the very flags that they are busy waving.

It’s one thing to oppose the other party’s candidate on the basis of their record.  It’s one thing to oppose them on the basis of their beliefs.  It’s one thing to oppose them just because you don’t like their looks, the cut of their clothes, or because the sky is blue.  Fine.  It’s your right.  But when you spread lies you are not opposing the man.  You are hating on democracy.  You are giving it the middle finger.  A democracy is the sum of its citizens.  Corrupt yourself, and you corrupt your country.  It’s one thing for the politican on your TV screen to do it, it’s one thing for the talk radio host you tune into every day to do it, but when You lie to your neighbor for political gain, you are shitting on America.

This precious democracy we all share, that was bestowed us with the blood and treasure of so many of our forebears, asks only that you treat its core value, the election, with care and attention, and give to it whatever honest consideration you can, to the best of your ability.  We all make mistakes sometimes in the ballot booth.  Some votes we cast we long live to regret.  But the important thing is we try and are honest.  With ourselves.  With our neighbors.  Disagree we may.  Vehemently.  Fine.  So long as it’s honest.  That is what so many good people in so many generations past have died for, so that we could do.  Speak freely and honestly to each other.  Persuasively.  Bluntly.  Calmly.  Angrily.  Whatever.  But honestly.  Because you can.  Because people died to give you that freedom.  That’s all American is obliging you to do every election year.  Instead, you are feeding it poison. 

America is dying from that poison.  I hear you speak of your patriotism, your love of flag and country.  Over and over again I hear it.  I see you wave the flag.  I see it on your front doors.  I see it on your bumpers.  I see you wearing it on your lapels.  Fine.  Swell.  Whatever.  You love America?  Then Stop Lying.  Stop.  Your motherfucking lies are killing it.

[Update…]  Here’s a link to Factcheck.org on Obama’s birth certificate, since the one Weigel linked to isn’t enough for the kook pews.  As if…anything could be…actually…  I’m sure they have a way of explaining away this too…

In fact, the conspiracy would need to be even deeper than our colleagues realized. In late July, a researcher looking to dig up dirt on Obama instead found a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961…

Dig it.  They went looking through the newspaper archives and found the birth announcement.  Of course…it’s all part of the consperacy you see…