Hey look, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is still a
horrible human being.
“His vision of America isn’t like our version of America. That we know,” King said of Obama. “Now I don’t assert where he was born, I will just tell you that we are all certain that he was not raised with an American experience. So these things that beat in our hearts when we hear the National Anthem and when we say the Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t beat the same for him.”
So it no longer matters that he was in fact born in America, he wasn't
raised American. Steve King just knows. He just knows that this current president of the United States, and heaven knows why, can't imagine a reason, etc., doesn't get the right "beat" in his heart when someone else says the Pledge.
King then brought up an image from the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign that stirred controversy at the time: Sen. Obama not holding his hand over his heart during the National Anthem. [...]
“I was taught by my grandfather that you put your hand over your heart during the pledge, but during the Star Spangled Banner, you sing!” Obama of the incident at the time.
That was a goddamn "controversy" to precisely nobody with an IQ above that of lettuce, but we'll take Steve King's word for it that the moment deeply scarred Steve King.
This is of course what birtherism was originally about, and it hasn't changed much now that only the stupidest members of the human race are willing to fess up to still believing it. Barack Obama is simply foreign to the "American experience," at least the only "American experience" considered valid by a collection of perpetually bitter mostly old, mostly southern white guys, for reasons that none of them can quite say but which no doubt mean that Obama is bent on harming America because he just hates it so darn much.
What could the reason for their belief that he is not a "true" American possibly be? What could possibly differentiate Barack Obama in the minds of Steve King or countless other "true" Americans from the 43 American presidents who came before him? It is a damn mystery, that's what it is. God help the poor politician these days who was born in Canada or in Panama or whose family migrated here from communist Cuba—think of how their American credentials would be questioned. Just think what would happen if they showed up to an event with an improperly sized flag pin, or sang the twenty-second note of the "Star Spangled Banner" a bit off-key. Just. Think.
What's that? It doesn't happen to other politicians? Well now, this only deepens the mystery. Whatever could account for Steve King's unwillingness to consider President Barack Obama a "real" American?