and yet, what's not so shocking is that it's the Left keeping this distraction (from flailing economy, health care reform)alive.

I haven't been following the birther craziness, so can someone please explain to me: even if Obama had been born outside the US, wouldn't his mother's US citienship make him a US citizen? The Constitution doesn't say that a President must be born in the US, just that the President must be a natural-born (ie, not naturalized) citizen. In addition to being suckers for nonsense, are the birthers really this ignorant about the Constitution? (Or am I ignorant about US citizenship law?)

Based on some laws in effect then, but since changed, if
Obama is born to 19 yo Stanley Dunham, outside the US, she was not a 'citizen' long enough (5 years) to automatically make him a
US born citizen as well.

Since he was born in the USA,
the above is irrelevant to the case.

I see the largest portion belong to the States where good proportion of the population believe that Dred Scott decision is still precedent (and therefor Obama is not a citizen since the post-Civil War amendments were imposed by force of arms and not valid).

Clearly that the south has the worst educational stats is reflected here.

The Repubican Party has become a small group of loud, angry old white people with narrow, conservative views. They want to return to the past to relive the "good old days." They are horrified and fearful of the present and terrified of future.

The GOP has become a regional southern party where intelligence and are disparaged, and science is dismissed. By design, it is remains a two class society: the wealthy, landed gentry, the politically powerful few and the downtrodden, dumb, and desperate poor and lower working class masses.