Max Blumenthal has a new piece over at The Daily Beast highlighting a conversation he recently had with Taitz. Here are some of the highlights:
Almost as soon as Orly Taitz answered her cellphone, before I could even ask a single question, the leader of the movement determined to disprove President Obama’s American citizenship breathlessly told me the president was “connected” to 39 bogus Social Security numbers, including one for a deceased person born in 1890. “If Obama is not stopped, we will be in Nazi Germany!” Taitz, who has a thick Russian accent, shrieked. “Forgery is a criminal matter and he committed it. Obama should be in the Big House, not the White House!”
[...]
Among Taitz’s “biggest supporters,” she said, is CNN anchor Lou Dobbs. “I did Lou’s radio show for half an hour and he was very understanding,” she told me. “He became a supporter and since then he became a supporter of the whole [Obama eligibility] issue.” Indeed, during the July 15 broadcast of Dobbs’ radio show, he praised Taitz’s work, suggested Obama might be “undocumented,” and demanded the president “show the documents” to prove he was born in the United States.
[...]
“This is Nazi Germany! These are brownshirts in action!” Taitz exclaimed when asked about recent segments by Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Jon Stewart mocking her campaign and questioning her credibility. “Anybody who does not take Obama’s word at face value will be harassed by brownshirts like Rachel Maddow.”
[...]
“I realized that Obama was another Stalin—it’s a cross between Stalinist USSR and Nazi Germany,” she said.
[...]
Taitz told me that Dobbs invited her on his nightly TV program to discuss the Cook case but wound up calling in sick. Instead, Dobbs’ fill-in, Kitty Pilgrim, covered the story. Pilgrim was visibly embarrassed by the topic, remarking, “CNN has investigated the issue, found no basis for the questions about the president’s birthplace… There is overwhelming evidence that proves the president’s birth certificate is real.”
Taitz told me Dobbs assured her after the broadcast that he would bring her back on his program for a sympathetic treatment. But Taitz’s appearance was canceled when CNN President Jon Klein declared Dobbs’ questioning of Obama’s citizenship a “dead story,” then told Variety’s Brian Lowry, “It would not be legitimate for Lou or anyone else at CNN to explore whether Barack Obama is an American citizen.”
How much traction are people like Taitz getting within the mainstream? According to a new Kos/Research 2000 poll that was just released, 28% of Republicans think that Obama wasn't born in the United States, 30% are not sure, and 42% believe that he was. That means 58% of those polled either outright endorse the viewpoint of Taitz or are not sure.
Couple that with the legitimacy that members of Congress are giving to this movement and you really have to wonder about the driving motivation behind this movement.
