Neil Abercrombie Should Rethink His Decision To Take On The 'Birthers'

Newly elected Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie has decided that he will be the guy to finally settle the whole "birther" conspiracy, a matter that was settled in sane circles before it even began. Slate's Dave Weigel, who has written more substantively about the birthers than anyone else I could name, gets right to the heart of why this is a mistake:

The "birther" movement began not because Barack Obama's campaign refused to show proof of his citizenship, but because it did show proof. In June 2008, it responded to some rumors about whether Obama was born a Muslim or had different parents than had been reported by releasing the short-form certificate, the sort of form you get if you lose your driver's license and need to prove your identity to the DMV to get a new license. This launched a cottage industry of hilarious "document analysis" attempting to prove that the certificate was forged by the Obama campaign. And this is exactly what would happen again if the governor of Hawaii, who knew the Obama family in the 1960s, let reporters photograph more of Obama's documents. The birther crowd would cry "forgery," as the Kennedy assassination and moon landing hoax crowds look for anything that could unravel the official story in every new official analysis.

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