The Equivalent of Nonsense Is The Nonsense Of Equivalency

Balloon Juice's DougJ spots National Review's Greg Pollowitz equating the birther idiocy to the 9/11 Truthers, arguing:

It's typical that the MSM is taking such an interest in this conspiracy theory while it did very little to dispel the Truther conspiracy theory that Bush knew of 9/11 beforehand. A Rasmussen poll found 35 percent of Democrats actually believe in that nonsense. Why wasn't that as big a story?"

This is what passes for birther repudiation among the Winger crowd: "See, see, Democrats were insane long before Republicans were, so that proves Republicans are still better! We win!"

...Seriously. As DougJ points out:

Did Democratic Congressmen ever bring any 9/11 Truthers type bills to the floor? Were there any 9/11 Truthers with regular CNN gigs?

The Rasmussen poll number is probably bogus anyway, but to be clear, the coverage of the birther stuff does not arise because of the percentage of Republicans who believe it (I have no idea what that number is), it arises because Dobbs, a variety of Fox wingers, and some Republican Congressmen are talking about it.

More importantly, Republican Congressmen and Village Wingnuts are actively encouraging it. Secondly, the 9/11 truth garbage was and still is offensive to a wide number of Americans, because a wide number of Americans were victims of 9/11. They lost their loved ones. We went to war because of it.

The birther stuff is nothing more than a direct political attack on one man, Barack Obama. Feebly equating the two in order to feel better about yourself is pretty vile, even for your average NRO staffer.