Foggy wrote:
This thing is gonna be a hairball by the end of the summer. It's like watching a balloon being overinflated. You know it's gotta pop sometime.
I think this was a given.
2008 - (pre-election) Lawsuits. End result - failure.
2008 - (post-election) Lawsuits, attempts to corrupt the electoral college and deny certification. End result - failure.
2009 - Citizen "Grand Juries" and lawsuits. End result - failure.
2010 - Lawsuits, Civil Disobedience. End result - failure.
2011 - Birther bills, fake trials, lawsuits. End result - failure.
2012 - (to date) Ballot challenges, "Cold Case Posse", lawsuits. End result so far - failure.
Every attempt that the birthers have made in the past to force Obama out of office and press the "magic reset button" has been a failure. Every confident prediction that he wouldn't be allowed to take office, that he wouldn't complete his first term, that he wouldn't run for a second term, etc, have so far been proven wrong. And the confident predictions that the American public would be so disgusted with Obama that the GOP could run anyone don't seem to be panning out.
And very few if any of the birthers are happy with the GOP's enforced march to mittdom.
So at this point, the birthers are looking at the wreckage of their past attempts. And they're looking at the GOP field and realizing that Obama stands a very strong chance of winning a second term in office. This, in their minds, is simply unacceptable. Bad enough to them that the scary black man tricked people into voting for him the first time, but the second???
I have no doubt in my mind what so ever that Corsi's current actions are part of a very real effort from Farah, GOP dirty trickster Floyd Brown, and others on the far right to try and use the birther lies to "swift boat" Obama. (Bear in mind the fact that one of the reasons why the "swift boating" of Kerry worked has well as it did, other than the large amount of money poured into it, is that Kerry took the high road and tried to ignore it. The Democratic party learned that lesson though).
Yeah, they're going to ramp it up between now and November. I expect more GOP politicians, particularly tea party types who may be realizing their own re-election chances are slim, will be playing flirty birther games as well. The GOP has already shown that they have no interest or desire to be honest or to denounce the birthers, and they've done a very good job of alienating and driving away moderate and sane Republicans as well, leaving the field to the far-right and the teahaddists.
I also suspect very strongly that there's a concerted effort in the far right to amp up the rhetoric between now and November in hopes that they can inspire some nut job to try and assassinate the President.
And should Obama win a second term, I fully expect that there will be a flurry of State and Federal lawsuits starting the day after election day to try and stop the certification of Obamas votes or to try and block the electoral college. I also fully expect there will be a few Congresscritters - particularly tea baggers who may have lost their re-election bids - who will challenge the Electoral College certification in the House. It's too early to say if they'll find a senator to co-sponsor the challenge, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do.
Finally, I expect the rhetoric to get EVEN HIGHER once Obama is sworn into a second term. Because there's a lot of birthers who are dead certain that Obama will find an excuse to cancel the elections in 2016 - and more than a few of them will be calling for coups, armed uprising or assassination as a result.
It's nowhere near over yet.