[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMUaca8wP9w]
Some things of note:
- The issue of Obama’s birthplace and his legitimacy as president has been clarified and dealt with ad nauseum. For instance, see http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html.
- Orly Taitz — the crazy lady in the above video, who is the driving voice behind the refusal to let this issue die — lists herself as a lawyer, dentist, and real estate agent. If that alone doesn’t immediately make you question her credibility, then… well, you belong on the fringes.
All that said, whywhyWHY is it that the mainstream media — not only local news but all the major 24/7 channels, NEWSWEEK, TIME — give this woman any mouthpiece whatsoever? And the bits I’ve seen are not even the old debating heads segments, where the anchor served to moderate (objectively, as I recall, though was there really a time when journalists presented the news and let the viewer opinionate? O RLY?) between two opposing voices. These are segments that, in my head, amount to free advertising for extremely partisan psychosis.
One of the MSNBC anchors mentions above that this is news, that it has to be reported, and I’m okay with that. Let the anchor mention that crazy people are still talking debunked bullshit, point out the facts again, and move on. If the crazy people start screaming about the liberal Jew media conspiracies to keep them off the air — well, hell, the truth is finally out. Move on.
The problem is that — for the most part — both sides here are preaching to the choir. The sane people watching will realize that Taitz is about as stable as her argument; the people that want to believe in Obama’s continuing Kenyan citizenship are going to do so, no matter how convincing the counter-argument (or, as the rest of us say: REALITY) is. The only thing you’re doing — besides maybe getting a small ratings spike, and definitely irritating the shit out of me — is potentially luring a few more crazies to the Dark Side.
These nutbags exist, unfortunately. We’re not getting rid of them any quicker than we’re ditching the Coulters and Limbaughs and O’Reillys of the world. They’ve got their rights, their Free Speech (even though I’m fairly confident that, given the opportunity, most of them would take away that right from anyone who disagreed with them). I don’t have the right to not be offended by them or their idiocy — I have the right to ignore them, and I will.
I will miss the days, though, when the television and radio media personalities were — at least, side-by-side with today’s — objective reporters, telling us the facts of what happened today. I miss when the crazy people were not given airtime to rant. And I miss Walter Cronkite, by god — can you imagine him, for one second, alleging and implying that the moon landing was a hoax, night after night?
Stop giving a medium to the crazy, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll go away. Or at least stop transmitting so far, so fast.