The National Review put the birthers at arm’s length a few days ago, prompting Roy, among others, to snort, derisively, and to predict, accurately, that the weasel word walkback would shortly commence.

Which, with all due respect to Roy, hardly makes him Kreskin or anything, since the Nat Rev piece was already pretty twisty. Its main thesis after all is that the birthers are making the Intellectually Rigorous Right look just like the Kooky Left, horrors. Of course, to prove the existence of the Kooky Left they cite the FACT that "one in three Democrats… believe that 9/11 was an inside job conducted with the foreknowledge of the Bush administration." They don’t give a source for this assertion, but it sure does sound fact-like!

As near as I can tell it has something to do with the at the time common wingnut assumption that since a 2006 poll found a third of Americans were willing to entertain the "inside job" hypothesis, that third must have been composed strictly of Democrats. This was, and remains, quite the assumption. Even better though is that the Nat Rev’s "inside job" crack is quickly followed by the assertion that "the Iraq War summoned the craziness in a big way." As indeed it did: as late as 2007, we could learn that "40 percent of Republicans believe Saddam was involved in 9/11, while just 27 percent of Democrats do." Oh those crazy Democrats. Oh, and they also lump in Andrew Sullivan’s stuff about Sarah Palin in their denunciation of the Left, which is fun, because calling Andrew Sullivan a leftist is at least as incorrect as saying Sarah Palin isn’t Trig’s mother.

This class of wingnut "argument" always kills me. Of all the weird things "conservatives" of the Nat Reviewist class believe, and these are legion, probably the weirdest is that they don’t believe anything weird. Why, only the liberals believe weird shit! That’s the reason they’re liberals! Observe the way the birther stuff over there is metastasizing — here for instance is Andy McCarthy taking 3,000 words or more to inform us that why, if it weren’t for those so-called "loony birthers," the crucial fact that due to legal minutiae Obama was a Kenyan citizen until he turned 21 would never have come to light. Shazam!

You can read McCarthy’s post for yourself if you want. If you do decide to plumb those depths, however, remind yourself of just how wacky those liberals were to ever even hesitantly question, say, George W. Bush’s National Guard Service. Those kooky moonbats!


Related posts:

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  2. Sorry, National Review: Birther Crazies Aren’t Just “A Few Misguided Souls”
  3. Chris Matthews Forces Birther Congressman to Admit Obama’s a Citizen
  4. Late Night: Freaks and Laughing in Wasilla
  5. Angry Birther Republicans Boo Congressman for Affirming Obama’s Citizenship