Shrinking into the comfort and general irrelevance of cultism and self-willed permanent minority status, the G.O.P. has embraced an especially pathetic conspiracy theory, now infamous as Birtherism.
Birthers feverishly subscribe to the notion that the president was actually born in Africa, and that his birth certificates from Hawaii are forgeries, thus depriving him of constitutional legitimacy as Chief Executive.
It's difficult to overstate my annoyance with the Birthers. At this crucial hour of policymaking, with powerful arguments needing to be made against virtually all of the Administration's major domestic and foreign policy initiatives, conservatives and Republicans are reducing themselves to contemptible punch lines, bereft of any intellectual credibility.
Wallowing in birtherism may be more fun than contesting the feasibility and desirability of Obama's proposals on health care reform, energy policy, and education overhaul, but ultimately it's just a degrading path to nowhere. More than a path to nowhere, it's a short route to the drainpipe of political obsolescence.
