Sheriff Joe Arpaio's two-ring circus comes to town

It must be true, a grocery store tabloid says so. The Ringling Brothers just left Phoenix, but don't worry, boys and girls: Another circus is coming to town this week, and it's shaping up to be a real two-ring doozie. In one ring we have a tea party ass-kissing media hog; in the other you'll find a, well, criminal. Psst! They're the same guy.

First up, on Tuesday, July 17, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his sidekick jokers at WorldNetDaily have scheduled a second press conference that promises to reveal even more explosive evidence about the president's "forged" birth certificate.

Right on cue, the Globe reported on Arpaio's earth-shattering investigation. In addition to revealing "Dirty secrets of the NBA champs," the fish-wrapper's front page screams, "BUSTED! This man forged Obama birth certificate." There's even a photo of the president having a sad and a man hiding his identity, so it must be so. Oh, and Kathie Lee hates Regis. And check out the words beneath the president: "Breaking News: Bloodbath!" Classy.

Back in April 2011, billionaire birther Donald Trump breathlessly told Meredith Vieira he had investigators in Hawaii who "cannot believe what they're finding." To emphasize the unbelievability factor of their discoveries, he added, "I'm serious." Apparently whatever they found was lost somewhere between Honolulu and NYC because neither Trump nor his team of expert Clouseaus ever said what this unbelievable shit is that Trump's so serious about. Now "investigator" Mike Zullo, who's heading Arpaio's "Cold Case Posse," promises even more revelations: "I can't disclose to you what we've discovered, but it's going to be a shocking revelation at our press conference."

Here's what'll be "shocking": If the presser doesn't simply dredge up the same tin-foily claptrap that WND, Orly what's-her-puss, Drudge, and dozens of show-us-the-birth-certificate websites have been throwing against the wall for years, hoping one of the turds will stick. Speaking of turds, here's how Arpaio summarized his iron-clad evidence at the first birther press conference on March 1, which was streamed live by every far-right dogfart in the nation:

"A six-month-long investigation conducted by my Cold Case Posse had led me to believe, there is probable cause to believe, that President Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate released by the White House on April, 27, 2011, is a computer-generated forgery," Arpaio said at a press conference this afternoon.

What led him and WND comedian Jerome Corsi to arrive at their "probable cause" conclusion was the "layering" effect of Obama's birth certificate, which they spent a great deal of time explaining, with PowerPoint slides and everything. Only problem: Most scanned documents are layered, and that's the format Arpaio's Cold Case Posse examined. They didn't have the actual birth certificate'the one Hawaiian officials deem authentic'only a scanned version yanked from a website. Even the National Review called Arpaio's accusation kooky, using their own magazine cover to illustrate the dumbshittery of the layering brouhaha.

(Continue reading below the fold.)