"Birthers" cutsey name like "deniers"

It is still a little baffling to me how the birth certificate story gets any traction at all. Today the IBD ran a story SEE HERE which continues the left's characterization of the story as something only nutjobs can believe. I'd probably be OK with that except that that's standard left-demonization tactics.

"Oh you don't believe in global warming" you're a "denier." Now that's a scientific issue which honest scientists can disagree about. There are a great many who do disagree despite the phoney baloney that there is a consensus. There isn't a consensus, and what consensus there was is breaking down.

But the "Birther" story is not a scientific issue, it's an issue of documentation. That means it's really more straightforward. If you have a birth certificate, produce it. There is an interesting web site that is tracking the birth certificate issue and it had a link to a copy of a Wall Street Journal article which is applicable and very helpful on the issue. SEE HERE

Whatever the thing Obama has produced it isn't what most people would consider a birth certificate. I'm not expert on any of this kind of nonsense, but my birth certificate (BTW except for the pesky Japanese, I'd have been born in Hawaii myself), has the hospital of my birth with other information like the attending physician. This thing that is being touted as Obama's birth certificate isn't a birth certificate at all. (Well in the light of the WSJ article I have to alter that to something more like: it's certainly not a conventional birth certificate.) It isn't apparently even called a birth certificate. But what's the big deal? And perhaps more disturbingly to me, why isn't there some sort of certification that goes back to the beginning of the presidential campaign that attests that the candidates have been vetted and are citizens? This whole thing is pretty weird and it only gets weirder as it continues to be an issue.

It seems far too facile to me to just dismiss people who have these concerns as nutjobs. I agree with those who think that it would be a pretty tall tale to imagine that Obama was not born in Hawaii when his announcement was published there. But then my wife pointed out that people do that all the time, announce the birth of their children in places where their relatives live. So it's not completely farfetched. What makes is really weird is that I have to supply my birth certificate to be elegible for the military, for social security, for a concealed carry permit, for damn near anything. But apparently I don't have to supply it to be president. What gives there? It should be necessary just to prove you're over 35, but also to prove you're a citizen. So I can't join the chorus ridiculing these folks, because I'm baffled why it seems to be an issue for the president to provide a real birth certificate.