The Birthers

This is a fascinating phenomenon: the Birthers. You've seen this video, right? The Republican Congressman from Delaware is holding a town hall meeting, and a lady starts waving her birth certificate around, demanding that we find out if President Obama is an American citizen, and people are cheering her on. Obama's birth records have been made public, his birth certificate has been studied, the local Hawaiian newspapers printed his birth announcement, there's no real question about whether he's an American citizen. Still, they believe.

The lady said something interesting in the town hall meeting that I can sort of identify with it. She said, "We want our country back!"

Well, lady, welcome to the club. The rest of us sat here for eight long years while our leaders attacked random foreign countries, tortured people, let a major, beautiful American city be destroyed by ineptitude, we saw our civil rights eroded, people jailed without charges, phone calls listened to without warrants, we watched the economy collapse under the weight of greed ... a lot of people "wanted our country back."

There is a way to get your country back. Win the election. That's what the Democrats did. They ran a candidate who could get more votes than your candidate. That's all there is to it, that's how "our country" works.

Now there are secessionist movements in many states -- Sarah Palin's husband is part of one, several states have introduced measures or made statements about seceding. The teabaggers model themselves after eighteenth century revolutionaries, the whole point is about overthrowing the government in the same way the American colonists overthrew the British. Fox commentators urge armed revolution, usually in slightly veiled terms, we have even heard them argue that a major terrorist attack would be good for the country. The anti-patriotism of the right is shocking, but not surprising.

Listen, people, you lost, that's all. The country isn't going communist, or socialist, or fascist, it's not being handed over to black people or wise Latinas or gay people or pacifists or atheists or [insert paranoid theory here] to do whatever they want with it. Some policies are going to change, because a new party is in power. It's not the end of the world, the Democrats waited while the Republicans ran the country into the ground and did not start talking about a secession or a revolution or encourage terrorist attacks. There were questions about George Bush's criminal record, his military record, his addictions, but nobody seriously suggested he was not eligible to be President. Even when he was jacked into office by questionable court rulings, Americans left and right accepted the rule of law. The Democrats lost, and they turned their attention to the next election. That's just how the wheel turns.

Barack Obama is a natural-born American citizen. There is no reason to think he's not. Those who oppose him -- and this is turning out to be a large part of the Republican base, including several powerful spokespersons -- are grasping at anything, no matter how absurd, to undermine his Presidency. Having lost the election by a landslide, they make insane assertions about Obama's legitimacy in the office.

The fact is, in America we elect our leaders. The election was last year. Your guy lost. It's only three more years till your next shot at it.