Ex-Birther

I am pleased to see that our esteemed Senator Richard Shelby is now "confident" President Obama was really, truly, honestly born in the USA, and thus is "qualified" to hold office. I read it in the Birmingham News, which explains by way of background that Shelby seemed to be a "birther" (that will be a great Jeopardy Question for 2100: "Zargot, what insane movement emerged with the election of the first black person elected to President in the old USA, in which the members denied all the logical evidence and continued to deny the legitimacy of Mr. Obama's Presidency?"). Anyway, now Shelby has now assured all of us---late July of 2009, eight months after Mr. Obama was resoundingly elected---that he's "confident" he was born in the US, a qualification to be president. But the tortured path Shelby took on to get there is an embarrassment. The clarification should have come a lot sooner...and would never had been needed is the Senator has been a touch more clear headed and clear-speaking in the first place. Maybe it was a case of wishful thinking, and remains so the rest of the "birthers". [UPDATE: And just where to most of the so-called "birthers" live? In the "Old South".]