It's a pretty dishonest for Politico to compare the "birther" movement (those who question Pres. Obama's citizenship) to 9/11 conspiracy theorists or Vince Foster nut jobs.
Out-party politicians have long had to deal with conspiracy theorists on their side — the people who think that the Clintons killed Vince Foster or that the Bush administration helped orchestrate the Sept. 11 attacks.
There is not, to my knowledge, a single reputable journalist or pundit or talking-head that honestly asserts that Bush-Cheney orchestrated the attacks on 9/11.
9/11 conspiracies have gone the way of black helicopters, fake moon landings and water-flouridation-as-a-mind-control-device.
Meanwhile, people from Rep. John Campbell (R, CA), to Rush Limbaugh to esteemed constitutional scholar, Lou Dobbs have jumped, to varying degrees, on the birther bandwagon.
Politico is trying to at once acknowledge the problematic nature of the birther weirdos (they're loud psychos) while at the same time discredit them (comparing them to 9/11 theorists).
The fact is, they're not like 9/11 or Vince Foster theorists, they're more problematic. A lot more.
Even assuming that only 5% of the country is "concerned" about Obama's citizenship (a conservative estimate considering 28% supported Bush at the end of his term), that's a pretty significant number of Republicans (I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that an overwhelming # of birthers are right-wing).
55M people registered as Republicans in 2008, ~5% (15,000,000 people) of the nation believe Obama's citizenship is under suspicion = a pretty significant percentage of Republicans (almost 40%).
Generates alot of buzz on talk radio, doesnt win many elections.
Comments