BUT THEY'RE ALL NUT GRAFS. These are golden days for wingnuttery. The new column by SusanAnne Hiller at Big Journalism -- swear-to-God titled "What If The Birthers Are Right?" -- has to be seen to be disbelieved. I commend her on packing so much lunacy into one tasty nut cluster:

While I won’t rehash all of the issues here, I will note, for the record, that the left started the birther issue (and continually attacked McCain) and Obama is also a McCain birther as he co-sponsored the Senate Resolution declaring McCain a natural born citizen–clearly understanding the difference between being a US citizen and being a natural born US citizen and its importance.

I at first expected her "left started the birther issue" link to advance the theory promoted by Jonah Goldberg that Democrats were "pumping the birther story in order to tar Republicans as extremists." But that one's kinda hard to work now that birtherism is on its way to becoming the consensus among Republicans.

It turns out Hiller's point is that liberals were trying to screw McCain by pushing his Canal Zone background as an issue in 2008, although as someone who was alive and sentient at the time I recall that it blew over very quickly, despite the strenuous efforts of some Ron Paul people.

The most obvious counter to her claim is that McCain's Democratic colleague Pat Leahy put the issue to rest with a Senate resolution way before the national conventions met -- which Hiller tries to preempt by implying that the resolution was actually an attack on McCain, because of the "difference between being a US citizen and being a natural born US citizen and its importance" -- which importance the U.S. Constitution ("a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States") does not acknowledge.

(I wonder that Hiller didn't advance the more elaborate McCain eligibility conspiracy theories of Orly Taitz. They make just as much sense.)

Further down Hiller's column:

Now that that’s out of the way, I’ve been watching the brouhaha that Donald Trump is causing and he is not backing down–that’s obvious. But during these interviews, it makes me wonder why the MSM so aggressively attacks anyone who even dares come close to this issue–even now–after they seemingly put it to rest. What are they afraid of–what might they find? And was Oprah wrong again?

Another question that I’d like to float: Is Obama intentionally withholding his long-form birth certificate to continue to perpetrate the notion that those who question him are crazy giving the media more ammo against the birthers and the right? It wouldn’t surprise me, but with [Jerome] Corsi’s evidence [in an impending birther book] that may not be the case.

Son of a gun, she got to the Goldberg Variation after all -- and in the most mind-bending way: Immediately after suggesting that Obama's MSM enablers are trying to hide the fact that he's foreign-born, she suggests that Obama is maliciously advancing the false theory that he's foreign-born.

If our country seems to be going insane, it's because the insane have all the advantages. If you're crazy enough to write something like Hiller's column, and have readers who are crazy enough to swallow it, you don't have to make the slightest bit of sense. Just mouth whatever random talking points come to mind, and you have a publishable column. Think how freeing that must be!

Oh, and as Teresa Kopec points out, the Very Serious People will cover for you. Politico's Ben Smith on the GOP birther boom:

What does this mean? I find it hard to believe that millions of Republicans have looked at the non-existent evidence and soberly concluded this. It seems that answering "was Obama born in a foreign country" elicits from Republicans the sort of response from Repubicans that "is George W. Bush a moron" would have elicited from Democrats -- a way to express reflexive hostility...

Really, in a world like this, what's the percentage in not being crazy?