Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Republicans are birthers

_{Visual source: Newseum}

CNN:

"Birtherism is a fringe issue that's way out of the mainstream, and it's disturbing when you see people you ... have some level of respect for, whether it's members of Congress or even Donald Trump, falling into that category," said Steve Schmidt, one of Sen. John McCain's senior advisers in 2008. "In the middle of the electorate, people think it's bats--t crazy. The side that's seen flirting with it doesn't do themselves any favors."

GOP strategist Rob Johnson, a political adviser to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, called the ongoing questions about Obama's background "an unnecessary and unfortunate distraction."

It's not a distraction... it's who they are.

NY Times:

But Mr. Ricketts is continuing to play a provocative role in the effort to defeat Mr. Obama.

He is involved in another effort slated for this summer, a documentary film based on a widely criticized book, 'The Roots of Obama's Rage' by Dinesh D'Souza, which asserts that Mr. Obama is carrying out the 'anticolonial' agenda of his Kenyan father.

Mr. Ricketts's aides said he was one of roughly two dozen investors, providing only 5 percent of the film's budget. But his involvement shows how the more strident attacks against Mr. Obama, which Mr. Romney's aides view as counterproductive, continue to find backing even as the Republican Party and the Romney campaign seek to keep the focus on the economy.

Like I said. Some, but not enough, pundits criticize the book and the theme (George Will, Weekly Standard are mentioned in the article.) But it is a prominent part of Republican thinking. See Poll: Obama's a Muslim to many GOP voters in Alabama, Mississippi. Or Illinois Republican primary voters: President Obama is a secret Muslim and might not be American. Or Do conservatives really think Obama is Muslim, or are they just dicks? Or more recently One in six voters still think Obama's a Muslim: Why? or even more recently Mitt Romney embraces Donald Trump, who celebrates by going full birther (again). This issue will not go away.

Gail Collins:

This was Romney's first foray into education since he became the presumptive nominee, but it had a quality of mushiness seldom seen outside of a six-week-old pumpkin. At one point, in a tribute to American entrepreneurs, Romney announced that 'if every one of our small businesses added just two employees, Americans could pay more mortgages and buy more groceries and fill their gas tanks.'

Or, you know, if they each added one. Or if the guys in the third row each hired 46.

Joe Nocera:

But let's be honest. Were there really any long-term investors in Facebook that first day? Judging by the torrent of criticism that has rained on Facebook and Morgan Stanley, it sure doesn't appear that way. Instead, what the Facebook aftermath suggests is that we've all become brainwashed into believing that, when it comes to I.P.O.s, up is down and down is up. A successful I.P.O. is one where the company gets hosed by Wall Street. A failed I.P.O. is one where the company's interests, not those of Wall Street speculators, are served. It's Alice in Wonderland goes to Wall Street.

Joe Klein:

I suspect that these Bain attacks are working. Indeed, I suspect the reason that the Obama campaign'and the President himself in an extraordinary moment at the NATO press conference last week'are so adamant about pursuing this tactic is that it (a) lays the predicate for the anti-Romney campaign to come and (b) has been extremely effective with focus groups. And so, what we may be seeing here is the exact opposite of a stumble.

EJ Dionne:

Romney is simply following the lead of Republicans in Congress who have abandoned American conservatism's most attractive features: prudence, caution and a sense that change should be gradual. But most important, conservatism used to care passionately about fostering community, and it no longer does. This commitment now lies buried beneath slogans that lift up the heroic and disconnected individual ' or the 'job creator' ' with little concern for the rest... Obama, in the meantime, pitched communal themes from the moment he took office, declaring in his inaugural address that America is 'bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions.' The more he emphasized a better balance between the individual and the community, the less interested conservatives became in anything that smacked of such equilibrium.

That's why today's conservatives can't do business with liberals or even moderates who are still working within the American tradition defined by balance.

This is at the heart of what's wrong with conservatism. And, btw, come back tomorrow morning for a review of EJ's new book, 'Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent".