"Birthers" Gone Wild

The above and below videos show the level of derangement among the so-called "birther" movement--people who are convinced that President Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen and that his birth in Hawaii is a lie. I have a word of advice to the birthers: seek professional help. You are playing with a few cards short of a full deck.

John Avlon, a former Chief Speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, describes the Birther movement in a must see Daily Beast article:

"Welcome to the world of the “Birthers”—right-wing conspiracy theorists committed to undoing the 2008 presidential election by trying to prove that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. The movement is evidence that Obama Derangement Syndrome is going viral from the far right, proliferating beyond fringe-festival Internet sites. It’s in danger of a quiet mainstreaming along partisan lines—reaching into talk radio, cable news, the armed services, and even the halls of Congress."

The birthers may be Right wingers but crazies exist at both ends of the political spectrum. Who can forget the "truthers" from the Lunatic Left and the anti-government Libertarians who are convinced that 9/11 was a Bush/CIA/Israeli-sponsored plot to grab dictatorial powers? Both these fringe group of crazies are in the same league as the Holocaust deniers and those that claim the moonwalk never happened 40 years ago. (However, the moonwalk denier mindset did produce one of my favorite 1970s "B" movies: Capricorn One, a 1978 film starring James Brolin, Elliott Gould, and O.J. Simpson, Sam Waterson, Telly Savalas, and Brenda Vaccaro, about a faked Mars mission).

A number of organizations (including Factcheck.org, PolitiFact.com, Snopes.com) have looked at the evidence and found that this is all nonsense. So I repeat what I said earlier: seek professional help (of course, if you are a birther or truther or denier of any kind you probably won't because you will believe that the mental health professionals are also part of the conspiracy).

Unfortunately, birthers are starting to gain an audience and support from conservative members of Congress and congressional candidates. Of course conservative talk radio loons like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have been beating this drum since the campaign.

It is sad that our politics have descended to this level. Reasonable people should be able to differ on policy without one side calling the other "socialist" or "communist" or questioning the president's citizenship. Of course, whoever said these crazies were reasonable?

Hat Tip: Political Wire.

Air Force One Photo Op Gone Wrong

This is not rocket science or brain surgery. After 9/11, I think it is safe to say that you should not stage a photo op of a jumbo jet flying at low altitudes across the Manhattan skyline. The fact that the airliner happens to be one of the planes that carries the president, also known as Air Force One only when he is on board, makes this a double no-no. The low-flying presidential aircraft is said to have caused near panic in the city which saw two of them crash into the World Trade Center towers that September morning in 2001.



The photo op was staged by the Defense Department which was trying to update its file photos. For his part, President Obama was said to be "furious" about the incident. The director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, took the blame: "Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it's clear that the mission created confusion and disruption."

It is amazing that no one in the White House or DOD thought this might be a bit traumatic for the residents of New York City and put the brakes on the operation. Oh, and it's not as if the plane changed it's colors or design after January 20. Same old plane. I'm pretty sure the old pictures were good enough. Besides the sheer stupidity of the event, I wonder how much this escapade cost taxpayers...