While discussing whether this birther nonsense is ultimately going to harm the Republican Party once their presidential candidates get through the primary race and have to start campaigning in the general election, Peggy Noonan did her best to downplay just how much of the Republican base believes that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. She also tried to blame the media for "whipping up" the story to make the conservative base look bad.
NOONAN: I think it is an issue that speaks to a small but passionate part of the anti-Obama base. I'm a little surprised over the years at how it's taken off. I think Donald Trump has taken to whipping it up and so people talk about it. But I don't think that it is a serious issue that will make anybody feel pro or anti-Obama. It doesn't change anything.
It's too bad that no one on the panel asked Peggy Noonan if she'd seen this recent report from Public Policy Polling:
Birthers make a majority among those voters who say they're likely to participate in a Republican primary next year. 51% say they don't think Barack Obama was born in the United States to just 28% who firmly believe that he was and 21% who are unsure. The GOP birther majority is a new development. The last time PPP tested this question nationally, in August of 2009, only 44% of Republicans said they thought Obama was born outside the country while 36% said that he definitely was born in the United States. If anything birtherism is on the rise.
And I'd love for her to explain why Donald Trump is seeing a huge rise in the polls since he started going out there spouting this birther nonsense -- Obama Birth Certificate Issue Turns Trump into Big Problem for GOP:
The Barack Obama birth certificate controversy may or may not impact the 2012 election. Since those outside of the tea party aren't focused that much on the birth certificate -- or alleged lack thereof -- it probably won't get anyone elected president. However, the Republican primary is only for GOP voters, so if the issue is going to resonate, it would do so there. As such, new numbers about Donald Trump's rise in the polls, after outing himself as a "birther" send a troubling message to the mainstream GOP.
Republicans as a whole are being blamed for the issue, as asking these questions about Obama strikes many as racist. But most Republican candidates who aren't tea party icons aren't touching it since they know it is unlikely to come off well in a wider presidential election. Yet it now seems it can help someone in a Republican primary, however.
Rather than acknowledge that the problem is the wingnut Republican base and their primary voters, Noonan blames the media.
NOONAN:I think birthers stuff is confined mostly to people who really hate Obama and it's their number four reason for hating him. Do you know what I mean? They've sort of got a list and it's part of the list. But it's not this positive for anybody. I often think that the mainstream media whips it up because it makes the conservative base look bad.
Yeah, that's the ticket. It's a plot by that evil liberal media that wants to attack conservatives. Sorry Nooners, but they're doing a good enough job of that own their without any help. Scarborough went on to complain about how unfairly all of those poor TeaBirchers out there protesting were being treated compared to the evil dirty hippie union thug protesters. Scarborough thinks his show is the only place that showed offensive signs from the union rallies and that the media only focused on showing signs from the “tea party” protests. Apparently he doesn't watch Fox. And no one had to make an effort just to find at few offensive signs at those "tea party" rallies. They were all over the place.
