Another wingnut from Florida

By Mustang Bobby

Following up on Creature's post, those of us who live in Florida want to know: where do we get these people?

Rep. Bill Posey, a freshman Republican from Florida, is now putting forward a bill that should be good news for a particular demographic that cares a whole lot about their issue: Those folks out there who insist that President Obama hasn't offered a birth certificate to prove he's a natural-born U.S. citizen.

CNN reports that Posey has submitted a bill to require all presidential candidates to submit a birth certificate -- which Posey says is needed in order to remove this issue as a reason to question any president's legitimacy.

"Opponents of President Bush used the 2000 election results and the court decisions to question the legitimacy of President Bush to serve as President," Posey said in a statement. "Opponents of President Obama are raising the birth certificate issue as a means of questioning his eligibility to serve as president. Neither of these situations are healthy for our Republic."

Posey's spokesperson told CNN that Posey takes President Obama's word for it that he's a citizen: "This was not meant as an insult to the president. It is simply meant as a way to clarify future election laws and to dispel the issue so we can move on with doing business for the country."

A quick check of the Library of Congress' Thomas site shows the bill does not have any cosponsors yet. But Posey only introduced it on Thursday, so he's just getting started.

I have a counter-proposal: pass a law to require all candidates for elected office certify that they are not complete idiots who take the paranoid delusions of the Tin-Foil-Hat Brigade with any more seriousness than they do the people who call into radio talk-shows and insist that they are being tracked by the implants put in their heads by the Cardassians.

I could provide all the links to the stories from the official agencies in Hawaii that prove that there's no truth to the rumors, but why bother? With people like this, the more you prove the truth, the more they are sure it's all a big conspiracy.

Frankly, I hope Rep. Posey gets some sponsors for his bill and he gets all the publicity he obviously craves. It will make him the poster boy for all the petty, vindictive, and way-over-the-top Republicans who would much rather waste their time on laughingly stupid efforts like this instead of actually doing some work that would actually help his constituents. On the other hand, he's making it really easy for whomever the Democrats nominate to run against him; all they have to do it pull out this howler and remind the voters that this was the man they so proudly sent to Washington to represent them: a complete stooge.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)