Romney Goes Birther

Today in a campaign stop in Commerce, Michigan, Mitt Romney decided he would try to bring some levity to his otherwise ill-humoured run for the Presidency. “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised,” said the presumptive Republican nominee to an all-white crowd.

Romney knows better for sure but he'd rather play to the lowest common denominator by suggesting that Barack Obama isn't quite an American if an American at all. The Obama campaign responded quickly and forcefully:
"?Throughout this campaign, Governor Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them. It?s one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Governor Romney?s decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America.?
A candidate can choose to raise the level of discourse or a candidate can choose to debase himself to lowest level of discourse. Mitt Romney has chosen the latter course and to indulge in the crassest of racist banter.
On this note, Ta-Nehisi Coates has a must-read article in The Atlantic this month. Coates writes:
""While Beck and Limbaugh have chosen direct racial assault, others choose simply to deny that a black president actually exists. One in four Americans (and more than half of all Republicans) believe Obama was not born in this country, and thus is an illegitimate president. More than a dozen state legislatures have introduced “birther bills” demanding proof of Obama’s citizenship as a condition for putting him on the 2012 ballot. Eighteen percent of Republicans believe Obama to be a Muslim. The goal of all this is to delegitimize Obama’s presidency. If Obama is not truly American, then America has still never had a black president."
On this note, Rep Steve King of Iowa has called for that on the first day of a Romney Administration that every act, every law and every executive order passed under Obama be undone. I have to ask, how should one respond to the inherent racism in such a bizarre demand and how do we as Americans respond to such insanity as that of Rep King?

illegal immigrant Pakistani The View gubernatorial candidate Howard Dean