Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently took a break from persecuting Latinos to do some law enforcement work critical to Maricopa County -- investigating the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate; the same one the White House produced months ago and which put to rest, once and for all, the outrageous claim that Obama was not born in the U.S. and, therefore, neither eligible to be President nor an American citizen.
Arpaio obviously seized upon the discredited "birther" issue to distract attention from the overwhelming evidence that he is not the tough law-and-order sheriff he pretends to be, but a racist thug who uses his badge to bully the county's Latino citizens. Late last year the U.S. Department of Justice issued a report detailing a litany of appalling abuses of power perpetrated under Arpaio, including unlawful stops, detentions, arrests, and use of excessive force. The DOJ concluded that the Sheriff's office has engaged in an illegal "pattern and practice of unconstitutional conduct and/or violations of federal law." So, it's not surprising that Arpaio, who may face federal indictment, concluded that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery.
On its face the "birther" issue is a silly fringe challenge to the president's legitimacy. Obama is hardly the first president whose legitimacy has been attacked. Bill Clinton's authority as commander in chief was questioned because he did not serve in the armed forces during the Vietnam War. And his citizenship was questioned amid rumors that he had sought to expatriate when he was a student overseas.
But the "birther" issue is part of something much more sinister. At bottom it is an attack on Obama's identity as an American, as a product of American culture. The challenges to Clinton, as absurd as they may have been, were based on actions Clinton took as an adult, such as avoiding the draft or allegedly renouncing his citizenship. Even at their most extreme, Clinton's political opponents derived their opposition from what he did, not who he was. Not so with Obama. The president's opponents on the extreme right focus their attacks on his American identity and less on his record.
Unfortunately, such attacks are not the sole province of the political fringe. Indeed, challenges to Obama's American identity have been common throughout the Republican primaries. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich asked, "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anticolonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior." He even went on to imply that the president was elected under false pretenses. Obama, he said, "played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president." Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, in his stump speech, indirectly challenges Obama's American identity by claiming he seeks a "fundamental transformation of America," into a country people "wouldn't recognize...a European-style welfare economy where people feel entitled to what their neighbor has." Former Senator Rick Santorum has even gone so far as to question the president's Christianity, declaring that Obama's agenda is based on "some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology." While Santorum can hardly deny the president's obvious Christian faith, he concedes it begrudgingly, and with more than a hint of saracsim, "If the president says he's a Christian, he's a Christian."
The subtext of these carefully parsed words is chilling -- the president is an alien in our midst whose very presence in the Oval Office threatens America's national security and culture. Would these attacks on Obama's American identity be possible were it not for factors other than his politics, such as his skin color and pedigree?
It comes as no surprise that Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his allies on the fringe right are interested in delegitimizing the president based on his background as the son of a Kenyan immigrant. After all, Arpaio's ugly brand was built on the belief that the darker a person's skin, the more likely it is they are illegal. Attacks on Obama's American identity are a just a natural extension of that racist doctrine.
Nor is it surprising that the Republican candidates have pushed the political envelope to the extreme right in an effort to lock in the party's base. At least as far back as Richard Nixon, the Republican playbook has been to run hard to the right in the primaries and steer back to the center for the general election. But now that Mitt Romney has won super-Tuesday, including the must win State of Ohio, and is the presumptive Republican nominee, it will be interesting to see if he continues to reinforce silly and discredited questions about Obama's American-ness, or, instead, focuses on the important issues facing the American people.
Follow David Leopold on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DavidLeopold
You also think the goverment can spend your money better then you.
After he gets the nomination he will swing dramatically canter until he gets chastised by the uber-right base forcing him back into his original losing positions.
It is not rocket surgery.
The hate will flow.
Mitt Romney will never reject anything that he thinks can help him win. He is a 'win at any cost' sort of guy. That is the way he rolls.
Dave Leopold apparently has not seen a single Romney political ad as yet.
How soon we forget.
It’s not what's behind attacks against our president, but whom.
A small group of billionaires attack our democracy. This is nothing new. But they are better organized now. (ALECexposed.org) Attacks are more forceful against Democratic presidents. Remember the book and documentary, "The Hunting of the President" that told of the ten-year campaign, including the billionaire-funded “Arkansas Project,” to destroy Bill Clinton. He was also viewed very unflatteringly by D.C. elites; not for what he did, but for WHO he was. He was a democratic governor from Arkansas. (Sally Quinn opined that the Clintons were not like them. The Clintons were somehow “other”.)
Billionaires are funding attacks against Obama. This time it’s true that they have racism to add to their campaign. Essentially, it is the very same sort of thing, playing up bigotry to undermine, demean, de-legitimize, ridicule, and weaken our Democratic president.
There's irrational hope that a birth certificate might prove to be something like the stain on a blue dress: the smoking gun. But that hope is pitiful. No legitimate officer of the court would touch such a ludicrous case, but a lesser official was willing - an Arizona sheriff.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/08/calling-romney-weird-code-mormon/41022/
“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney,” said a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House.
The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60921.html#ixzz1olS2vdzo
This is from "a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House". So don't you need to ask: Will Barack Obama reject the politics of hate?
Shouldn't he run a campaign which "focuses on the important issues facing the American people" and not "kill Romney" and the Mormon code of "weird"? Or are we to simply write off the suspicious repetition of "weird", "a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers", as having nothing to do with religion?
and thats an accurate reflection of their actual posistions on the "issues",,,,
but i'm not gonna say Cain wasn't born here because he's a black republican....
How soon we forget.
How little we understand not what's behind attacks against the president, but whom.
A group of billionaires are undermining our democracy. They are well organized. And they lash out more forcefully against a Democratic president. Remember "Hunting of the President" which was a ten-year campaign to destroy Bill Clinton. He was seen in unflattering terms by the D.C. elite. Not for what he did, but for WHO he was. A democrat.
Billionaires are funding attacks against Obama. This time they have racism to add ugliness to their campaign. Essentially, it is the very same thing: undermine, demean, de-legitimize, ridicule, and weaken our president.
A birth certificate may be like a stain on a blue dress: the smoking gun. But this case is too weak. Rather than hire Ken Starr to do dirty, they went to the bottom of the law enforcement barrel: a willing Arizona sheriff.