WorldNetDaily v. Glenn Beck (for now, anyway)

WorldNetDaily has not taken Glenn Beck's mocking of birthers well -- birtherism, after all, has been WND's raison d'etre for a good year and a half.

WND's first response was a "news" article that aimed to set him straight on what birthers believe (with an accompanying opt-in poll headlined "Arguing With Idiot"), insisting that birthers "reflect a far greater diversity of opinion than is assumed by Beck's characterization." This was followed by an article by Jerome Corsi insisting that, contrary to Beck's idea that birthers believe "a wild conspiracy in which Obama's parents, knowing he would someday be president, 'preemptively' collaborated with two separate newspapers to publish phony announcements stating he was born in Hawaii," the real truth is that "the birth announcements offer no proof of citizenship, because they might reflect nothing more than information a family filed with the Hawaii Department of Health to obtain a state Certification of Live Birth for a baby born outside Hawaii."

Note the word "might" in there. That's a major clue that WND's birther conspiracy hinges on what might be the truth -- that shadowy area where conspiracy theorists like Corsi do their work -- not what actually is the truth.

Corsi also repeats the claim that "even the Hawaii state government refused to accept a short-form COLB [certification of live birth] as proof of a Hawaiian birth required for eligibility in state programs," citing as an example the state's Home Lands program. But given that the Home Lands program is open only to people of "native Hawaiian" ancestry -- something Obama has never claimed to be -- the question of whether Obama's COLB is sufficient proof for it is irrelevant.

WND then brought in the heavy artillery -- Alan Keyes.

In his January 8 column (yes, he's a regular WND columnist), Keyes questioned Beck's constitutional bona fides, claiming that "he apparently fails to appreciate the real issue raised by the controversy over Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility for the presidency" and that he "simply parrots the mad-stream media's malicious caricature of the eligibility issue." Keyes also claims that Beck's words "carry overtones of the notion that the Constitution is a 'living document,' to be shaped and reshaped in light of the trendy preoccupations and priorities of the moment." (Actually, the opposite is true -- Beck has touted a book claiming that the "living Constitution" idea "is so alien to the constitutionalism of the American Founders.")

All this is targeted, by the way, at someone who just a week earlier received honorable mention in WND's "person of the year" competition.

While we're as entertained by intramural battles over conspiracy theories as much as the next person, it's important to note that Beck has previously had no problem embracing claims propagated by WND.

Chief among them is the conspiracy theory that Obama wants to create a "civilian national security force" that would serve as a personal army -- a WND favorite. There's also the false claim that Anita Dunn asserted she controlled the media while communications chief for Obama's presidential campaign, as well as the witch hunt against Van Jones (WND has touted how Beck "picked up WND's reporting" on Jones).

Just because Beck is trying to distance himself from the birthers doesn't mean he's keeping the crazies at WND at arm's length. As soon as one or the other forwards a new smear that fits their mutual goal of taking down the Obama administration, it will be dutifully echoed, and they will be BFFs once again.