Cup of Joe

Among the manifestations of OIP Derangement Syndrome—such a visceral dislike of seeing Barack Obama elected President that one starts speaking in contradiction to facts, logic, or past positions—is “birtherism.” That’s the insistence that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii as legal documents, contemporaneous newspapers, and family friends all attest. Accepting that myth allows people to justify the internal conviction that Obama should not be President without having to acknowledge the real reasons they feel that way.

Birtherists suffer so much from OIP Derangement Syndrome, in fact, that many of them probably don’t even realize that their position doesn’t get any stronger when it’s joined by someone whom the U.S. Justice Department has already found to be racist.