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Wednesday, Jan 16, 2013 9:09 PM UTC

Birthers refuse to concede

Less than a week away from the inauguration, conspiracists insist the president's reelection is "illegitimate"

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Topics: Birthers, Barack Obama, Conspiracy theorists, Inauguration, White House, Kenya,

Birthers refuse to concede (Credit: AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Though most people have long dismissed and scoffed at conspiracy theories about President Obama’s citizenship, there is still a handful of birthers who are holding onto the hope that Obama could be exposed before his inauguration on Jan. 21.

Eldon Bell, a retired Air Force officer, said: “This inauguration is a mistake and those who permit it to happen will have to live with their own consciences.” He added: “Whether I watch depends on who’s being inaugurated. If it’s this guy, probably not, because I don’t pay much attention to illegitimate things.”

The Washington Post reports:

At this late date, Bell and his fellow believers in the notion that Obama was born overseas or is otherwise ineligible to be president still expect some court somewhere to buy into one of their theories. After more than 100 court cases, no judge has.

Even after Obama convincingly won reelection despite four years of low popularity ratings, a sluggish economy and a highly motivated opposition, advocates of various counterfactual theories about the president — he’s a foreigner, he’s a Marxist, he’s a Muslim — say they’re sticking to their fight.

Cliff Kincaid, who runs America’s Survival, a collective of online groups that fear things like socialism and liberals, told the Post: “The Republicans seem not to realize that Obama is a Marxist who wages class warfare and could not qualify for a sensitive government position based on his associates and his character.”

“Let’s face it, this is a man very deep into an ideology that is not American,” says the Rev. Clenard Childress of New Jersey, telling the Post that he thinks it’s 50/50 as to whether Obama was born here, and a Muslim.

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.

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