Why Do Birthers Persist?

A Birther, as you no doubt know, is someone who believes that President Obama is not a natural born citizen. The debate has been ongoing constantly since before he was elected, and you’d think by now that the furor would have died down. But it hasn’t. In fact, it has grown dramatically.

So why is the Birther movement growing?In part, it’s because of mistakes and contradictions that are out there, some committed by Obama himself. For example, is PresBo 48 years old or 52? Even the White House isn’t sure.

PresBo has repeatedly stated that he was born on Aug 4, 1961. You can find that in numerous places, including his Facebook page. That would make him 48 years old. However, if you look at his MySpace page, you’ll see that he claims to be 52 years old. That places his birth year in 1957, two years before Hawaii became a state. (And yes, the MySpace page is linked from the White House website, so it appears to be the genuine article.)



This is yet ANOTHER contradiction in his birth story that the birthers are pointing to as a solid reason that he should release his birth certificate. And since the White House itself is releasing this contradictory information, it’s easy to see why the Birthers want the whole thing settled once and for all by a release of the long form birth certificate.

If you want to know why this controversy is still alive, look no further than the White House. By making mistakes like this one on MySpace, they feed the flames of suspicion and ensure the movement will never die.

But for me, the telling question is this. If the White House staff can’t even get PresBo’s AGE right, do we really want to trust them to run important things like health care?