Notable dumbass Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
When we last joined prominent House Republican Cliff Stearns (R-Florida (of course)), he was busying himself by denying bribe allegations, "investigating" Solyndra (because Rep. Darrell Issa can't hog
all the asinine hyperpartisan fake investigations for himself, according to the rules set forth by the caucus' Equal Opportunity for Idiots Agreement of 2010), and
sympathizing with constituents who were unconvinced that the president of the United States was actually born where and when anyone with even a shred of actual credibility says he was. Apparently, however, he was not just humoring an obvious crazy person in a room full of crazy people but honestly believes the nonsense being spouted, because
he's now going all Full Metal Birther on us:
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), a top member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, on Tuesday said he's not yet convinced that President Obama’s birth certificate is legitimate.
“I am, shall we say, looking at all the evidence,” Stearns told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday, [...]
Stearns cited an inquiry by an Arizona sheriff – an apparent reference to Arpaio – and noted he believed there is “another investigation” as well.
“I think we are just going to hold in abeyance a final decision until we hear, you know, some of these people seem to have legitimate concerns, so I don’t think it is unreasonable just to see what they have to say,” Stearns said.
I think the "legitimate concerns" at this point boil down to the president of the United States continuing, despite furious admonitions by his detractors, to be conspicuously Not White Enough. No matter how many times a birth certificate is produced, long form or short form, no matter the birth announcements in old Hawaii newspapers, no matter what number of actual, legitimate news reporters are given the chance to put their hands on the thing, it remains impossible to satisfy a small set of people who, it should be noted, never once had any qualms about any other birth certificate on the face of the planet, until the black-looking fellow showed up, and for whom any proof is met only with assertions of an even
more elaborate conspiracy theory that puts all the previous stupid conspiracy theories to shame.
(Continue reading below the fold)
Note again that Cliff Stearns has actually put himself in charge of investigating things, e.g. Solyndra, in spite of the fact that his powers of deduction apparently consist of trusting that an Arizona investigation put together by an infamous publicity hound and outsourced to actual for-profit conspiracy mongers is somehow compelling evidence of anything other than the old not-P.T. Barnum saw about suckers. (Being a sucker has never been an impediment in politics, however, which is why people like Sarah Palin are treated as nearly gods, but I digress.)
You may ask yourself what "evidence" Cliff Stearns finds so all-fired compelling in the birther conspiracies. No clue. But here's what conspiracy wackjob Jerome Corsi has been up to since sharing a stage with Sheriff Joe Arpaio to announce that stuff that he's already been peddling for years (the stuff that is now giving crack investibator Cliff Stearns pause, because it's just so damn compelling). New evidence!
Jerome Corsi is out with a new report today suggesting the Ayers family paid for "foreigner" Obama's education.
The allegations are based on Corsi's conversations with former USPS postman Allen Hulton, who says that he used to deliver mail to Bill Ayers' parents in a Chicago suburb in the late 80s and early 90s. This should prove to be rock-solid.
Sparing you the details, the story goes like this: Jerome Corsi says he's found this retired mailman who says he used to deliver mail to Bill Ayers'
parents, who bragged to their mailman about sponsoring a young black foreign kid (did I mention black, and foreign? And black?) with an "African" sounding name, and it was probably Obama, and the mailman says he once met the kid outside Bill Ayers' parents' house and asked him what his plans for the future were, and the youthful Obama said oh, he was going to be president of the United States because the fix was in:
"There was a little bit of a grin on his face when he said it - he sounded sure of himself, but not arrogant. I know how people will say things because they have an ambition, but it did not come across that way," Hulton says. "It came across as if this young black male was telling me he was going to be president, almost as if it were the statement of a scientific fact that had already been determined, as if his being president had been already pre-arranged."
You know, the phrase "I shit you not" gets thrown around a lot these days, but ... yes. The whole decades-long plan to install Barack Obama into the presidency for no apparent actual goddamn reason may finally come crashing down because the young (Kenyan) Barack bragged to a random effing mailman on a front porch somewhere about it, just like a teenage James Bond villain sitting on the edge of a bathtub, outlining his whole plan for world domination to some guy who came to fix his plumbing. Yes, that's the ticket. And the whole of the 2008 Democratic primaries were a sham, too, as was the Republican plot to anchor conspicuously white foreign-born John McCain to Sarah "Deadweight" Palin, thus guaranteeing that Bill Ayers' parents' plans for their young secretly-Kenyan ward would eventually come to fruition.
In any event, and OMFG I can't believe there are people in this world who take any of these nutcases and barely-reformed Klanscritters seriously, Cliff Fucking Stearns apparently is taking these nutcases and barely-reformed Klanscritters seriously. Perhaps it is because he wishes to pander to them. Perhaps he is merely fucking stupid, a fellow with the crack deductive powers of a sea sponge. It is hard to say.