If the President were McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone and whose status is therefore very slightly more ambiguous than Obama’s, this movement would not exist. The same people leading the charge today would probably be shouting down anyone who had the temerity to “raise questions” about McCain’s citizenship. I won’t rule out that race may have some role, but nationality and nationalism are far more important. Never underestimate how closely some of these partisans identify their own particular ideology and party with being truly American. The only way to make sense of the explosion of this lunacy is to see it as a continuation of the belief that Obama, by virtue of what he believes, cannot be a “real” American, so the obsession with his place of birth is really an extension of the presidential campaign in which he and his supporters were considered not to be from “real” America.I'd however have to disagree on that point I bolded above: I think the exact opposite is true. Nationality and nationalism are nothing more than a socially acceptable smokescreen for attacking Obama when the reality is there are people that primarily do not like Barack Obama because of his race. It's nothing more than applied Lee Atwater. Obama's birth certificate is simply an avenue that people can attack him on in order to delegitimize him. You see the GOP play this card all the time on immigration, for instance.
Also, I'd be much more willing to believe that Birtherism was less of a racial attack and more of a "real American" identity issue if it wasn't be accompanied by direct racial attacks on the President, and the woman leading the charge for the Birthers wasn't herself an immigrant from Moldavia via Israel, which nobody in the movement seems to have a problem with.
It's racism with a coat of goofy paint.
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