Birtherism: Where it all began
Ben Smith and Byron Tau - Apr. 22, 2011 12:38 PM
POLITICO.COM
Just when it appeared that public interest was fading, celebrity developer Donald Trump has revived the theory that President Barack Obama was born overseas and helped expose the depth to which the notion has taken root--a New York Times poll Thursday found that a plurality of Republicans believe it.
If you haven't been trolling the fever swamps of online conspiracy sites or opening those emails from Uncle Larry, you may well wonder: Where did this idea come from? Who started it? And is there a grain of truth there?
Hillary and Obama
The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama.
The theory's proponents are a mix of hucksters and earnest conspiracy theorists, including prominently a lawyer who previously devoted himself to 'proving' that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job. Its believers are primarily people predisposed to dislike Obama. That willingness to believe the worst about officials of the opposite party is a common feature of presidential rumor-mongering: In 2006, an Ohio University/Scripps Howard poll found that slightly more than half of Democrats said they suspected the Bush Administration of complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks.
While there is no grain of truth to either fantasy, there's something else when it comes to Obama: A visceral reaction against him, a deep sense that the first black president, with liberal views and a Muslim name, must be--in some concrete, provable way--foreign.
Read more:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/04/22/20110422birtherism-where-it-all-began-obama-politico.html#ixzz1KJAGdyuz
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