Some conservative critics opine that I and others highlight the antics of a few crazies and tar the entire conservative movement with extremism. Well, let them explain the latest Gallup poll [1]which shows that 41% of Republicans do not believe President Obama was born in the United States.

The Constitution requires that candidates for the presidency be born in the U.S., so believing that Obama was not born here is tantamount to questioning, not his policies, but his legitimacy. It is also another way of saying “he ain’t like us” with all the likely racist undertones of that statement.

I will use these pages to applaud the first Republican member of Congress who addresses these findings and calls out those who doubt the President’s legitimacy. My guess is that the silence will be deafening. What is clear, however, is that extreme, crackpot views are not held only by a few outliers by a significant percentage of the Republican voters. That is scary.