Birther Of A Nation, Part 4

Salon's Joan Walsh catches Liz Cheney (natch) playing footsie with the Birthers.

Tuesday night on CNN's "Larry King Live," rising GOP shill/star Liz Cheney refused to denounce the "Birthers" -- the right-wing fringe movement devoted to denying (for a changing array of reasons) that Obama is eligible to be president. Instead, Cheney defended the Birthers by blaming Obama for their rage.

I wasn't planning to blog so I took notes in real-time, and I can't promise Cheney's quote is verbatim. But she said the same thing twice, so I'm confident I caught her drift. After King showed video of the crazy birther who disrupted a meeting with poor GOP Rep. Mike Castle, demanding he acknowledge Obama was born in Kenya (that's one birther claim); and after Carville denounced them as a "poor, pathetic" fringe group, King gave Cheney a chance to distance herself from them. But Cheney demurred, telling King the Birther movement exists because "People are uncomfortable with a president who is reluctant to defend the nation overseas."

The rarely shocked Carville seemed briefly speechless, and even King, not known to be the most combative interviewer, tried a second time to get an honest reaction from Cheney -- which I read as expecting her to separate herself from the crazies. But Cheney repeated her talking point about Obama inadequately defending the nation overseas. Unbelievable. Carville called her on it, accurately: "She refuses to say, 'This is ludicrous,' because she actually wants to encourage these people to believe this."

Now, I've debated Cheney, so I know she'll do anything from rudely interrupting to lying to make her point, but even I expected her to take King's opportunity to distinguish her brand of Republicanism from the hooligans who run with the Birthers. But she didn't. Wow. The GOP keeps coughing up younger, supposedly more compelling, "new" leadership, from Sarah Palin to Mark Sanford to, now, Liz Cheney -- and they keep making clear they're not ready for prime time. It's remarkable.

The video is on Salon's site, and it really is something, but then today Liz Cheney digs the hole deeper:

Politico's Ben Smith wrote about my blog post, and asked Liz Cheney if she wanted to clarify her remarks. Cheney emailed this statement:

I don't have any question about Barack Obama's right to be President of the United States.

My concern is with his policies. I am deeply troubled about the path he is taking this country down -- massively expanding the size of government, weakening our national defenses, increasing taxes on all Americans and nationalizing health care. These are dangerous policies for the nation.

Cheney basically proved Carville right: By refusing to denounce the Birthers on CNN, then issuing a mealy-mouthed statement that she doesn't question Obama's right to be president, Cheney has it both ways: She curries favor with the Birthers and but affirms her basic sanity (if not integrity) to the Beltway media.

All this goes back to the point I made yesterday: the GOP Pretty Hate Machine has no intention of putting a leash on the Birthers. Like Liz Cheney they are courting the base here and they dare not tamp it down. In many ways they are actively encouraging the behavior to motivate their depressed ranks.

Remember Jim DeMint: The plan is to "break Obama". The Birthers are a means to that end. Dehumanizing, de-legitimizing and demonizing the President as the Enemy is a useful political function to the GOP. Of course the Republican pundits will be fueling these attacks while feigning that the outrage is a "legitimate response" by the people to the President's policies, and the "outpouring of anger" is all Obama's fault for somehow not addressing these concerns.

Obama has indeed done so, and has made his birth certificate public knowledge since June 2008, but of course the Birthers don't believe it (and they never will). Watch for the GOP and others besides Liz Cheney to continue to use the Birthers to attack the President. No matter how unhinged these guys get, the GOP will continue to back them. After all, they created the Birthers during the campaign. The Republicans don't have any real solutions to the problems America faces, and the voters rejected them totally in 2008. They have nothing left but to try to build hatred towards the President as the enemy of the people.

It's all the GOP has right now. Obama must be "broken".