Watching a certain segment of the right descend ever deeper into obsession with Obama’s place of birth*, I remembered that I predicted that a fixation on Obama’s identity would become one of the consuming passions for many conservatives during his time in office:
As the election campaign has already shown, the most powerful, widespread opposition to Obama from the right centers around his identity, his associations and what these are supposed to tell us about him. We can expect constant obsession with Obama’s biography and associations to preoccupy most mainstream conservatives for the next four years, so that the names Raila Odinga and Tony Rezko will become for another rising generation of conservatives what Paula Jones and Mochtar Riady were to mine, which is to say they will become the distractions that will consume most of Obama’s critics and keep them from focusing on more serious problems with his administration (whatever those might turn out to be).
I made my predictions last October by taking for granted that conservatives would go into opposition against Obama in the same way that they did against Clinton, and they would do this because many unaccountably believe that their opposition tactics were successful in the ’90s. One of the similarities between conservative responses to Clinton and Obama is how deeply and viscerally most conservatives seem to loathe the man, regardless of his policies, and how a presumption of some unusual degree of malevolence and dishonesty informs their reactions to everything he does. This not only puts them deeply at odds with an overwhelming majority of the country, who may have deep reservations about his policies but find it difficult to work up the concentrated disgust that many conservatives feel, but it also makes them less interested in persuasion, policy alternatives and effective argument. Focus on scandal and controversy is a sure sign of an opposition that cannot or will not do much else. It is also a sign of an opposition that has little hope of winning back the public’s trust.
* It is probably just a matter of time before they begin questioning whether he was, in fact, born as a human or instead grown as a Cylon copy. After all, this “raises serious questions” that Obama needs to put to rest!
Rowan 
jamie 
Now, let’s dig a little deeper. The WaMo link says HI’s DOH director confirmed he was born on 8/4/61. His b’day is not, AFAIK, in dispute. However, the DOH director never said anything about his b’day, she only said he was born that and was a “N.B.C.”.
A minor point? Not really: it indicates that Benen didn’t read what the DOH director said, or he doesn’t remember it, or he’s just engaging in sloppy thinking. Or, all those and more. As another example of sloppy thinking, some people think she’s qualified to determine whether he’s an “N.B.C.” when that appears to be a question for legal scholars. Why is Larison approvingly linking to a partisan hack who’s engaging in sloppy thinking? (And at a site that for years has deleted comments that show how they’re wrong.)
Moving on, perhaps Larison would like to tell us why he isn’t using this issue to help me discredit the MSM. Wouldn’t smacking down the MSM help force them to offer better coverage? Wouldn’t that help the MSM cover policy matters in a more fair way?
Instead, the anti-birthers are enabling and in some cases helping the MSM to lie and are rewarding their lies instead of letting the MSM know that lying has consequences.
Let me give a tangible example. A couple weeks ago, CNN said that HI’s governor had confirmed he was born there. On big problem: HI’s governor never said anything like that. In fact, at the link you can see a form letter she sends out in which she points out that it would be illegal for her to verify he was born there.
So: HI’s governor says that under HI law she can’t verify he was born there and no one can find any statement from her saying anything that could be construed as her verifying he was born there. Yet, CNN said that she did verify he was born there. You’d have to be a good doublethinker to take CNN’s side.
And, CNN’s report has been used as the basis for other reports from the SPLC, MMFA, and so on.
If I can get a correction out of CNN, that will help undercut the SPLC, MMFA, and those other sources. Why aren’t Larison or HotAir or Instapundit or Ace or all the rest helping with that effort? They wouldn’t have to engage in any “birther theories”. All they’d have to do is point out that CNN lied: they made something up that never happened. Instead of helping me pushback against CNN, the SPLC, and MMFA, they’re in effect helping those groups. And, once again, they could help pushback against “the other side” without believing any “birther theories”. So, why aren’t they?