• Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012
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Commentary: 'Birthers' nonsense sets Georgia up for ridicule — again

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We will risk the fairly safe assumption, as this is being written, that Air Force One did not make an appearance at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport sometime Thursday.

That President Obama did not obediently appear before an Atlanta judge, head hung in humiliation and hat in hand, to plead for recognition of his citizenship and of his legal legitimacy as president of the United States.

That he did not break down before the onslaught of crusading dentist-prosecutor Orly Taitz, like a murderer worn down by the relentless interrogation of Perry Mason, and shout his confession to the world: “It’s true! I’m a Kenyan Muslim socialist infiltrator, smuggled through Hawaii to overthrow the United States and all its imperialist swine! Oh yeah -- and I speak French!”

You almost have to laugh at this latest chapter in the seemingly endless “birther” saga, because about the only alternatives at this point are tears and/or nausea.

It was embarrassing enough when members of the Georgia legislature -- including, to Columbus’ acute humiliation, two members of the local delegation -- drafted a “Presidential Eligibility Assurance Act” in the last legislative session.

Now Georgians get to enjoy the added spectacle of their secretary of state, Brian Kemp, warning the president (let that sink in -- warning the president) through a White House attorney that failure to appear in a Georgia court would be “at your own peril.” Really, Mr. Secretary? Is that a threat?

Taitz, whose 15 minutes of fame should have been up a couple of years ago and who was never worth more than five in the first place, says this “enormous” cover-up on the part of “high-ranking judges and federal officials” will be “a hundred times bigger than Watergate.”

If by that she means it’s going to drag on longer, she might be right.

Peach Pundit editor Charlie Harper, in a blog published this week in the Savannah Morning News, wrote: “This is a mistake. We are taught from a young age that we will be judged by the company we keep … The birther argument transcends disagreements of policy and politics and spirals into pure nuttery.” How true.

Georgia, no thanks to some judgment-impaired officials and certainly without the consent of the governed, has been slumming in the Orly Taitz nuttery neighborhood way too long. Please, for the sake of the state’s already battered image, let’s just quietly tiptoe out of this putrid political ghetto and back to the daylight side of town before we attract any more ridicule.

Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

To read more, visit www.ledger-enquirer.com.

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