"Not My President" Redux

We've already seen conservatives shift their position on criticism of the president: formerly an anti-American, terrorist-abetting sin under Bush, criticizing the president is now patriotic enough to warrant Tea Party reenactments.

But another double standard has become apparent with the incomprehensible endurance of the "Birther" movement. Under Bush, conservatives would roll their eyes every time a liberal made a snide comment about the 2000 election.

"He's the President. Get over it," they would say.

Yet now, against all tangible proof and sound logic, some conservatives continue to protest Obama's legitimacy because he's allegedly a foreigner without a birth certificate.

Even though we know he's not a foreigner. We have his birth certificate. Which you can view online.

So both Bush and Obama have had the legitimacy of their elections brought into question by their opponents. The difference is the 2000 election was so contestable that the Supreme Court had to decide it, whereas the results of the 2008 election are disputed only by people desperate enough to argue that a Certificate of Live Birth is not a Birth Certificate.

Happy Fourth!

On July 4, 1776, the Congress of the United States of America formally adopted the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.

But the actual vote for independence had occurred two days earlier, on July 2. This was the day that John Adams predicted "will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival." Instead, we commemorate our declaration of the resolution for independence, not the resolution itself.

Nor is the Fourth the day on which the Declaration of Independence was signed. Although dated July 4, the Declaration would actually be signed a month later, on August second.

The Brits finally got word of it later in August. They were not amused.