The inmates have taken over the asylum

POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Thursday, May 24, 2012 23:27
VIEWED: 2423
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NIKI2

Wednesday, May 23, 2012 10:42 PM

You just gotta laugh at the GOP shooting itself in the foot this way:

Quote:

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Dark theories about President Barack Obama's citizenship show no signs of fading away.

But "birthers," as those skeptics of Obama's heritage are known, no longer seem relegated to tinfoil hat fringes of American politics.

Instead, it's Republican members of Congress, elected officials and state party organizations -- in Arizona, Iowa and Florida -- that are responsible for the latest round of conspiracy-mongering. And the loose talk could cause a headache for Mitt Romney this election season.

The issue flared this week in Iowa, a closely watched electoral battleground, where the state GOP wrote a passage into its proposed party platform calling on presidential candidates to "show proof of being a natural-born citizen," beginning with the 2012 election.

Don Racheter, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party's platform committee, told Radio Iowa that the language was intentionally crafted as a "shot" at Obama.

"There are many Republicans who feel that Barack Obama is not a 'natural-born citizen' because his father was not an American when he was born and, therefore, feel that according to the Constitution he's not qualified to be president, should not have been allowed to be elected by the Electoral College or even nominated by the Democratic Party in 2008," Racheter said defiantly, even though the language may be tweaked at next month's Iowa GOP convention.

Birther theories vary.

Some argue Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii. Others, such as the one outlined in Iowa, focus on the fact that Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, supposedly rendering his son ineligible for the Oval Office.

The Romney campaign would clearly prefer to focus on the economy and banish birth certificate talk to the "fever swamps" of the Internet, as Buzzfeed's Ben Smith recently labeled the sinister corners of the Web where conspiracy theories thrive.

Instead, birtherism is creeping more and more into the domain of GOP officialdom.

Fresh examples appear on a near-weekly basis, often in key battleground states, much to the delight of Democrats eager to distract voters from the troubled economy and tie Republican candidates to the extreme elements of their party.

Republican members of Congress in swing states such as Florida (Rep. Cliff Stearns), Colorado (Rep. Mike Coffman) and Missouri (Rep. Vicky Hartzler) have publicly raised questions about Obama's citizenship in recent weeks.

In North Carolina, the state GOP convention will be headlined next week by Donald Trump, whose 2011 crusade to unearth details about Obama's origins drew global attention and prompted the White House to release the president's long-form birth certificate.

Also in North Carolina, a state both campaigns are aggressively targeting, The Charlotte Observer recently retracted its endorsement of a Republican congressional candidate after he said he was "suspicious" of Obama's birth certificate.

In Arizona -- not quite a swing state, but one that national Democrats are nonetheless keeping an eye on -- Secretary of State Ken Bennett said last week that he may refuse to put the president on the ballot in November unless the state of Hawaii authenticates Obama's birth certificate.

Bennett, a co-chairman of Romney's Arizona campaign, said he was only doing so at the request of his constituents.

On Wednesday, Bennett said that he had received the necessary verification from Hawaiian officials. "They have complied with the request and I consider the matter closed."

With the general-election fight between Obama and Romney now under way, and with both campaigns fighting for an increasingly tiny share of undecided and moderate voters, Republicans are expressing frustration and downright embarrassment that the issue won't just fade away.

"Birtherism is a

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