Why is it so hard to be rational on this topic?

The Left reflexively flashes back to 2000 and thinks those who question where Barack Obama was born are trying to invalidate the results of the last election. Perhaps some are. But I think the vast majority of those at least perplexed, as I am, by the Obama Administration’s handling of this matter view it more in terms of a continuation and extension of Bailout Nation’s extra-legal do-over mania. Just as folks who played by the rules as understood by everyone when they borrowed money — or bought health insurance for themselves and their family — are incensed at moves to re-write the rulebook, so too are they bemused, disgusted, outraged by the studied indifference to compliance with a Constitutional requirement for office.

Were Barack Obama were to come out and say, “Damn, I was born in Kenya afterall. Didn’t know that” I really would not have a problem with that. Go ahead and amend the Constitution on the fly, do some weird resign-appoint-resign tapdance, and boom, if in some magical 24 hrs. later Barack is back in the Oval Office, fine by me. Could not that fast happen, of course. The natural-born requirement is archaic as hell in the 21st century. But right now, it is the law.

Here we come to the rub of why the elites, increasingly of all political stripes, are profoundly offended by the birthers’ stubborn insistence that we adhere to the law as written. The elites think the requirement is archaic too, but are afraid to say so lest they further distance themselves from the broad middle of America. Republican elites in particular are caught between birther upset and a desire not to offend those whose political support they hope to win. Then there is the technocrat angle: Suppose Obama is not eligible, then what? What mechanism do we possibly have for dealing with this? Better to leave it alone, mock anyone who brings it up.

I sorta understand that sentiment, at least the don’t start something you cannot finish aspect. What I do not get, however, is the way this view has bled over into mainstream media coverage. You’d think an emotional he-said, they-say type story would be irresistible, especially with the document-digging angle. But no.

Here’s CNN honcho Jon Klein getting the facts of matter exactly wrong in ordering Lou Dobbs to stand down from the story. You’d think that given Dobbs is permitted to commit non-stop nitwittery on economic topics, a straight up fact-of-the-matter question like where the president was born would be gold. Again, no. The significance of this stance is what it portends.

I’ve said it before and am only growing more convinced of it by the day, America’s media elites will do everything in their power to make sure Barack Obama gets a second term. Substitute any issue of substance from the 2012 campaign into the current treatment of the birthers and the natural-born question to see how that will work.