All Keyed Up

Dr. Alan Keyes, former UN ambassador, three-time Republican presidential candidate and MSNBC host who also ran against Barack Obama during his Illinois senate campaign in 2004, can add a new bullet point to his resume - "Birther". He also espouses the view that Obama is a "radical communist" who "will destroy this country". The video at the end of this post plays Keyes' rant and has analysis by Jonathan Alter of Newsweek.

If you haven't heard of the phenomenon of the "Birthers", let me give you a little background. An eclectic group of PUMAs, separatists, constitutionalists and varied crazies believe, that for one or more reasons, Barack Obama is not legally entitled to be POTUS. The reasons range from the sublime to the ridiculous, but for the most part can be summarized as follows:

- His father was not an American citizen, therefore he cannot be a natural-born citizen (NBC). The much publicized birth certificate is roundly regarded as a forged document. Birthers suggest that, because of Obama's father's status, that he is either a citizen of Kenya or Great Britain.

- He was born in Kenya and his mother was too young to confer American citizenship. "Proof" for this lies in a truncated audio recorded by a Kenyan relative. The full version of the audio clearly states that he was NOT born in Kenya.

- He was adopted by his Indonesian step-father and thusly renounced his American citizenship at the age of 6.

- Other competing theories suggest that he was born in Canada, is the son of either Frank Marshall Davis or Malcom X (kinda kills the NBC thing), or that Barack Obama was actually killed and replaced by a Muslim manchurian candidate, or something.
You see, Dr. Keyes has a lawsuit filed in California charging that Governor Schwarzenegger and Secretary of State Deb Bowen improperly certified California's electors as Obama is not an NBC. He is being represented by a gentlemen named Gary Kreep and a Russian immigrant who received her law degree online and also works as a dentist, Dr. Orly Taitz. Other players in the Birther game are two sasquatch hunters and a 9-11 truther.

While Keyes has spent the better part of his political career on the extreme right ideologically, aligning himself with conspiracy theorists certainly discounts him ever being taken seriously in mainstream political circles ever again.

The Keyes piece starts about two minutes in.