David Horowitz has a short piece at Politico today on the matter of those people still peddling the conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in Hawaii, and that his birth certificate claiming as such is a fake. Horowitz warns his fellow conservatives (and, implicitly, quite a few PUMAs) not to fall victim to "Obama Derangement Syndrome." The article is prompted by today's Supreme Court decision not to hear a case alleging that Obama had dual nationality at birth due to his father's being a British subject, which, if valid, would render the President-Elect not a "natural born citizen" and thus ineligible to become Commander-in-Chief.
That David Horowitz is telling his friends on the right to stay sane? Like many things in life, it's too good to be true. While Horowitz does use some bristling language to attack those alleging a shadowy conspiracy to foist a foreigner upon the American people, he doesn't ever dispute the rumor that Obama's birth certificate is a fake. Indeed, he goes out of his way to lend credence to the allegations, referring to the minor question of Obama's citizenship as "a contested technicality" and asks, "What difference does it make to the future of this country whether Obama was born on U.S. soil?" Aside from violating the Constitution, Obama's hypothetical non-citizenship would actually be a rather significant issue, but that's neither here nor there. By framing the argument this way way and studiously avoiding a simple affirmation of Obama's natural born citizenship, Horowitz is dogwhistling to the people he's ostensibly trying to rebut.
--James Kirchick