The Birther Effect
The Birther Effect
Todd S. Purdum, of
Vanity Fair, considers the historical currents underpinning Birtherism:
It has been more than a year since President Obama produced a copy of his long-form birth certificate from Hawaii—and nearly 50 years since the historian Richard Hofstadter first coined the phrase “the paranoid style in American politics.” But the continuing “birther” circus in Arizona demonstrates that this is one non-issue—and one national character flaw—that is never going to go away ....
.... This would all be funny, if it weren’t so sad—and more than a little bit scary. Fittingly enough, Hofstadter’s analysis had its origins in another Arizonan, Barry Goldwater, whose campaign for the G.O.P. nomination is what inspired Hofstadter’s lecture at Oxford University in 1963 and his essay in Harper’s magazine the following year. Hofstadter acknowledged that he was borrowing the term “paranoid” from psychiatry and that it was pejorative. But the phenomenon he described was anything but new, and not necessarily limited to right-wingers. Irrational venom had variously been turned against Freemasons, Jesuits, Progressives, and—perhaps most famously, with McCarthyism—against Communists.
“The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms,” Hofstadter wrote. “He traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values.” He is “always manning the barricades of civilization” and “does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician.”
“Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil,” he added, “what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish.”
Purdum points to the Arizona issue with Ken Bennett pursuing the president's birth records. "Bennett went out of his way to insist that he himself was not a 'birther' but was simply trying to satisfy the concerns of his alarmed constituents. That’s either a painful reflection of the political fear the question generates or a remarkably disingenuous and self-serving statement. Whenever someone says, 'It’s not about the money,' it’s about the money."
The Arizona incident is not without its repercussions; pundits and watchers cannot help but conflate Bennett's months-long go-round with Hawaii with the infamously ornery Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Such as
Dale McFeatters' two cents about the Arizona Birther battle:
It's a role for which the state seems well-suited. Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts wrote, "We've long been the land of crackpottery and lunacy" ....
.... Never mind that this issue has long been put to rest in the mind of every rational American. Bennett perhaps began to have second thoughts when he found himself denounced by national news organizations as pandering to crackpots, the tool of half-baked clowns, a practitioner of political buffoonery and a legitimizer of lunatic leanings.
That's not what you want on your resume if you're planning, as Bennett apparently is, to run for governor in two years.
He finally did what any state official could do and asked Hawaii for a copy of Obama's birth certificate. Hawaii complied, and his office quickly and quietly dropped its effort to prove that Obama was an illegal immigrant who sneaked across the Rio Grande to take jobs from Arizonans.
Given the timing, it's hard to not see a connection:
Arpaio also is after Obama's draft records, which would seem to be beside the point because, as president, Obama is commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, including the state militias. It says so in the Constitution, although Arpaio might want to demand that the National Archives prove that its copy is not a forgery ....
.... However, Hawaiian officials — who have never struck me as a particularly devious bunch (I have kids stationed there) — said that the Arizonans met with the deputy director of health, the director being away, and a deputy attorney general and that they were provided with all the relevant documentation.
Arpaio pronounced: "We feel this document is a forgery. We're trying to figure out who did it. That's good police work." Well, if the sheriff says so, but calling your hosts forgers seems unlikely to guarantee much in the way of future cooperation.
However one looks at it, though, the New Birther Army is catching the attention of the Republican Party's upper echelons. CNN's
Peter Hamby explains:
Dark theories about President Barack Obama's citizenship show no signs of fading away.
But "birthers," as those skeptics of Obama's heritage are known, no longer seem relegated to tinfoil hat fringes of American politics.
Instead, it's Republican members of Congress, elected officials and state party organizations -- in Arizona, Iowa and Florida -- that are responsible for the latest round of conspiracy-mongering. And the loose talk could cause a headache for Mitt Romney this election season.
The issue flared this week in Iowa, a closely watched electoral battleground, where the state GOP wrote a passage into its proposed party platform calling on presidential candidates to "show proof of being a natural-born citizen," beginning with the 2012 election.
Don Racheter, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party's platform committee, told Radio Iowa that the language was intentionally crafted as a "shot" at Obama.
Hamby points to the Arizona debacle and the emergence of new Birther names in the Republican congressional caucuses. "Fresh examples appear," he suggests, "on a near-weekly basis".
Including a recent occasion in North Carolina in which
The Charlotte Observer retracted its endorsement of congressional candidate Jim Pendergraph for various reasons, including Birtherism:
What a run for Republican Jim Pendergraph. After winning the Observer’s endorsement in his bid for Congress, he has done nothing but embarrass us and himself.
By buddying up to one of America’s more hateful egomaniacs and then joining with fringe “birthers” to question President Obama’s citizenship, Pendergraph has contradicted much of what he told the Observer’s editorial board in his endorsement interview last month. As a result, we have lost faith in him, and urge voters to consider Edwin Peacock or Ric Killian in the 9th Congressional District race.
Not infrequently, the Observer endorses candidates with whom we do not agree on all, or even most, of the issues. That is because we consider the views of the constituents the candidate seeks to represent. We often endorsed Rep. Sue Myrick using that logic. When choosing among 10 Republicans in the 9th District race, we considered not only the extent to which we agreed with the candidate but the extent to which he represented the views of the conservative 9th District. We seek a candidate with integrity, intellect, common sense and sincerity, and whose views are not so extreme as to not reflect his district.
Republican strategist Steve Schmidt told Hamby, "Birtherism is a fringe issue," and acknowledged that "it's disturbing" when politicians one respects cross over into the realm. Rob Johnson, an advisor to Gov. Rick Perry, calls Birtherism "an unnecessary and unfortunate distraction". GOP Chair Reince Priebus has denounced the movement, as well. "I've been pretty clear now for over a year," he told CNN, "that this issue is a distraction."
Conventional wisdom suggests that, as Schmidt suggests, every day Mitt Romney's economic campaign is drowned out by Birtherism, "is a bad day for him". True, some might wonder just what that economic message is, but that is a whole separate discussion. Still, though, the looming spectre of Birther madness not only detracts from time people might otherwise spend thinking about economic or security issues, or some such, but also asserts an affirmative bond between the tinfoil fringe and the Republican Party. One-two, friendly fire.
Well, maybe not so friendly; one would not be far off to suspect a correlation between Birthers and Republican supporters who are not enthused about pushing a Mitt Romney campaign. But the point would require at least a subconscious sabotage of Romney's campaign, with the payoff being four more years of fighting the absolute injustice of the Obama presidency versus retooling the message for a soulless, moderate, white Republican in the White House. And, sure, that's
possible, but that can't be what we're seeing; it's way too easy if that's what we're seeing.
Perhaps, then, the question is whether the voter enthusiasm Birthers draw will match or exceed the potential loss of support in the swing bloc.
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Notes:
Purdum, Todd S. "The Conception of the Birther". Vanity Fair. May 24, 2012. VanityFair.com. May 28, 2012. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/...y-goldwater-richard-hofstadter-arizona-arpaio
McFeatters, Dale. "Arizona unleashes its birthers". The Record Searchlight. May 28, 2012. Redding.com. May 28, 2012. http://www.redding.com/news/2012/may/28/dale-mcfeatters-arizona-unleashes-its-birthers/
Hamby, Peter. "Despite a frustrated GOP, anti-Obama 'birthers' still persist". CNN. May 23, 2012. CNN.com. May 28, 2012. http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/23/politics/birthers-arizona-iowa/index.html
Editorial Board. "2 better choices in 9th Congressional District". The Charlotte Observer. May 3, 2012. CharlotteObserver.com. May 28, 2012. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/03/3217068/2-better-choices-in-9th-congressional.html
