On his radio show yesterday, Fox News personality Glenn Beck lampooned the birther movement, saying its claim that Obama is not an American citizen is the “dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Beck argued that the birthers’ agitation is actually a “dream come true” for Obama because they are constantly “discrediting themselves” and making all conservatives look foolish. Far-right news website WorldNetDaily (WND), which has led the birther charge, took offense to the way Beck “caricatured” its movement’s argument. While both Beck and WND both traffic in extreme anti-Obama fear mongering, the site nevertheless accused Beck of sounding “reminiscent” of “Obama’s apologists” in the media:
The ongoing dialogue then spun off into ridicule as Beck caricatured those who question the sitting president’s eligibility with straw-man arguments reminiscent of jibes made by Obama’s apologists in other news outlets. […]
“Birthers,” however, reflect a far greater diversity of opinion than is assumed by Beck’s characterization. … While other top radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin and Lou Dobbs, have all said unequivocally and publicly that the Obama eligibility issue is legitimate and worthy, a few — including Beck and fellow Fox TV host Bill O’Reilly — have taken the position that the issue is, in O’Reilly’s words, “bogus.” Both Beck and O’Reilly cite the contemporaneous appearance of birth announcements in two Honolulu newspapers as prima facie evidence Obama was born in Hawaii and “birthers” are conspiracy nuts.
Beck is often at the forefront of right-wing conspiracy theories, but the completely baseless smear that Obama was not born in the U.S. seems to be a bridge too far, even for him.