Jon Stewart vs. Lou Dobbs and 'birthers'

"You just knew this was coming!" said Gawker. "Jon Stewart devoted a Daily Show segment to the birther movement and its enablers in the media last night, a segment he used to eviscerate them thoroughly and hilariously." CNN's Lou Dobbs must be wishing he had never suggested the fringe "birthers" might be right to insist Barack Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and is therefore ineligible to be president (watch Jon Stewart's take on Lou Dobbs and "birthers" and watch Dobbs' questions about Obama's birth certificate).

It was great fun to watch Jon Stewart go after Lou Dobbs, said Michael Wolff in Newser, especially when he pointed out "that Dobbs’ own network, CNN, had meticulously debunked all of the theoretical circumstances underlying the conspiracy." But that's the beauty of conspiracy theories—they merely buttress beliefs people already have, and in this case the real issue is simply that Barack Obama is not a white American the way all our other presidents were.

Ridicule the birthers all you want, said Larry Amon in Examiner.com, but that won't make them go away. "Obama could easily release his long form birth certificate" and settle the whole matter—so why hasn't he? "Just to stop people from talking about it and to show that he has the most transparent administration, you'd think he would."

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