The past week has seen a resurgence of the kooky “birther” conspiracy movement that claims President Obama was born abroad despite clear evidence to the contrary. First, a soldier being shipped out to Afghanistan was granted conscientious-objector status because he didn’t believe that Obama, whom he believed to be foreign-born, had the right to order his deployment. Then the Washington Independent reported that a bill supported by the birthers requiring presidential candidates to prove their natural-born citizenship had attracted nine co-sponsors. Now a video of a town hall led by Delaware Republican congressman Mike Castle is making the rounds, and if you’re someone who took solace in thinking that Obama conspiracy theorists were a bunch of isolated nut jobs, it will scare the shit out of you. Because while they’re still nut jobs, they don’t seem so isolated anymore. The level of enthusiastic support in the room for this hysterical woman and her crackpot theory, and the indignant response to Castle when he defends Obama’s citizenship, is simply astounding.
