Late yesterday, Slate's William Saletan unloaded on Republican leaders' deafening silence about the rumors regarding Obama's faith and citizenship. He doesn't pull punches--in his view, Boehner, Cantor and McConnell's failure to smack this unhinged garbage down is pure cowardice.
. These three men are confident enough in the personhood of fetuses to support banning abortion. They're confident enough in the efficacy and justice of the U.S. health care system to block funding of the Affordable Care Act. They're confident enough in Wall Street, despite the recklessness and bailouts of the last three years, to press for repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. But ask them whether Obama is a Muslim or was born in the United States, and suddenly they're too humble to impose their beliefs on others. They can only describe "the facts as I understand them." They can only speak "for me." They can only "listen to the American people," not "tell them what to think."
Never mind that both of these rumors have been debunked several times over. Never mind that believing either of these smears would require believing scenarios that are beyond bizarre.
So let's see if we have this right. Boehner, Cantor and McConnell aren't willing to smack down a theory that would have required Ann Dunham to have flown to Kenya while she was showing? And they aren't willing to call out a theory that would amount to imposing an unconstitutional religious test on the presidency? That's about the only way to explain their deafening silence.
But then again, this lack of leadership isn't entirely surprising. Remember, we're talking about a bunch that made Joe Barton apologize for apologizing to BP--but couldn't be bothered to make the Republican Study Committee take down a press release using almost the same language that Barton used.