Mike Huckabee And Birther Lite
March 04, 2011 10:17 am ET by Eric Boehlert
It's telling that the right-wing birther phenomena has swelled to such proportions that we're now seeing offshoots and subsections to the debunked ODS conspiracy theory spring up. And the brand that Huckabee is now giving voice to, and was pushing all week during his public "Kenya" meltdown, is something akin to Birther Lite. (Or, highbrow birtherism.)
Huckabee, a possible presidential candidate, insists he doesn't question whether Obama was born in America or that the president's birth certificate is legit. On that front, Huckabee would seem to dismiss the birther nonsense. But listen to Huckabee rhetoric about Obama. Listen to how Huckabee raises the dark specter of Obama being different, and foreign, and not like you and me. Listen to how Huckabee attacks the president for being anti-American. Listen to all that gobbledygook and guess what, you're listening to birther rhetoric.
What Huckabee's doing with his misguided Obama attacks, and with his distorted telling of the president's youth, is setting aside the obviously false conspiracy theories about Obama's birth certificate and skipping right to the meat of the birther critique.
And I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas. And I just do think that there is - again, I am not saying he's not a citizen, I've never said that, I've said the opposite. I've never said he's a Muslim.
See the game Huckabee is playing? I'm not a birther! But Obama has a "different wordview" based on his "very different experience" growing up in a distinctly un-American way.
Huckabee reiterated those points on The O'Reilly Factor:
The original point of the birther movement was to claim Obama was not born in America and therefore he's ineligible to serve as President of the United States. Since then, the movement has expanded that critique to include a more sweeping denunciation of Obama as being foreign or foreign-influenced and not like you or me to the point of being un-American. And guess what, all week long Huckabee was giving voice to that unseemly attack.
So just because Huckabee doesn't raise doubts about Obama's birth certificate doesn't mean Huckabee's not a birther. It just means he's practicing Birther Lite.
Neo-birtherism?
Or does anti-colonialism not mean what its name suggests?
Because, I gotta say, it's really strange to be hearing Republicans mock anti-colonialism, if it means what I've always thought it meant.
The FOXtards have managed to sell the notion that opposing foreign occupation of your homeland is a bad thing. Of course, the racist overtones are deafening. Their implication is that the brown peoples of the world should have been grateful for the magnanimous subjugation of the British Empire, while we, as White Colonists, were perfectly justified in overthrowing the same yoke.
It's absurd on its face, but it works on the weak minded.
Is that even possible that there can be enough people who are dumb enough that an entire political party can get away with that as a meme? And no one ever questions it?
It's mind-boggling.
White-on-white freedom-fighting patriotic anti-colonialism. Which is Good.
Nonwhite-on-white uppity anti-colonialism. Which is Not Good.
That's why the "Kenya" part is so integral to the whole smear job. Anti-colonial on its own is obviously not a problem, it's the type of anti-colonialist you are that matters.
Translation:
Anti-colonialism = N*****
They certainly can't possibly think even for a second that they're going to be seen as anything other than rabid, hysterical racists by future generations.
growing up "American" = white
Oh and FYI, the "highbrow birtherism" link appears to go to a password protected site.
Maybe we should worry about those who joined being part of a cult.
This theory whitewashes entire regions of people as all thinking the same way, which is by definition, racist.
I wonder if he was ever a part of a white supremacist group, did he support Jim Crow policies, and tactics. He may say that he deplores Jim Crow beliefs today but what about then, has he ever been asked about his past?
I believe he still hold many of those old southern Jim Crow beliefs, but today’s environment prevents him from saying what he really feels, that is until he's in like company.