Well, IF he was foreign born and if he knew he was foreign born, then he would be deliberately hiding it, he would be pulling a deliberate fraud, a serious charge with clear and obvious criminal motives, a constitutional crime worthy of impeachment . Then I certainly agree that it would be a very troubling sign, much more so than, say, diddling one of the interns in the Oval Orifice.

But the ferocity and persistence of these ridiculous rumors argues that there is much more to this birther thing than mere indignant and self-righteous concern for constitutional rectitude. The fact that Barry Goldwater and John McCain were technically not born in the USA never provoked a years-long conspiracy theory among Democrats (although it was brought up briefly by a few wackos). And malicious rumors about George McGovern and GHWB's military records were quickly quashed by their political opponents.

Karl Rove has even suggested the whole birther meme is a deliberate propaganda maneuver started by the Democrats to make Republicans look like idiots. Well, I don't give the Dems credit for that much smarts, but it is pretty clear the birthers (and the Kenyan, socialist, Mau-Mau and Muslim meme believers as well) are that idiotic.

What I find much more instructive is the failure of main-stream Republicans who know better to simply step up and say "this is nonsense", and put it to rest once and for all, like TB and Rove did. One of the most troubling aspects of modern political discourse (yeah, I know, some Democrats do it too) is for moderates to refuse to challenge or condemn the more extremist members of their parties for making incorrect, deliberately fabricated, and even malicious, statements. The usual excuse given is "They are afraid of alienating their base".

But in this case the implication is clear. Obama is not one of us because he's foreign, he's an outsider, he's not an American. Even his Negritude did not originate on the slave ship or the plantation. Therefore nothing he (or his followers) says or believes or does can be believed. In fact it is to be rejected out of hand, because it is un-American. And don't tell me I'm just being paranoid, because I hear it all the time: Obama is a socialist, he is determined to bring down the country and the free enterprise system, not due to incompetence or error, but deliberately and maliciously.

Again, the implication being that if you won't accept that, you must be just like him.