Pam Geller's new book is out, and based on the Amazon preview function, she plays with Birther ideas a few times in its pages, but not nearly as much as I would have expected.
That's not to say that the book isn't going to be an endless fount of crazy. For instance, when I searched for "birth," this was the first reference produced, in her Introduction:
Quote:
Barack Hussein Obama did not grow up breathing these ideas. He spent a good portion of his childhood in Indonesia, and when he did move to the States to live with his grandparents when he was twelve, it was not to the continental United States, but off the mainland in Hawaii. Hawaii had only just become a state two years prior to his birth, and many on the island were not happy about it. So not only was it a nascent state, but many within it were hostile to the idea of America.
Apparently, Hawaii isn't American *enough* for Pam Geller. But rather than simply emphasize the obvious, or harshly rebut her conclusions, I'd like to point out two of the more subtle flaws in her logic.
First, Hawaii did indeed become a state two years before Obama was born. But as Geller pointed out in the previous sentence, he returned to Hawaii at age "12" (actually, 10). Not just two years, but over a decade after Hawaii became a state. And some 70 years after Hawaii became a US territory. I'm a wee bit skeptical of how "hostile to the idea of America" your average Hawaiians were at that point. Y'know, after Americans put a man on the moon and whatnot.
Second, if Obama's return to Hawaii in 1971 is a problem because "it was not to the continental United States," then I can't help but imagine what Geller thinks of Sarah Palin's move to Alaska when she was even younger and Alaska was an even newer state.
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