Birther Bait (or: Let Campaign '12 Begin!)

If the  upcoming NYT Mag article on Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, is deeply researched and nuanced, I’m afraid the newly uncovered family photo accompanying it will be all-too-happily greeted by birthers eager to equate the President to a Somali pirate.

Of course, the Hawaiian photo appears just a day after the surfacing of this hateful photoshop job, produced by a duel GOP and Tea Party leader in Orange Country. In attracting the attention of a mainstream news blogger (big ratings ahead from the more freewheeling side of the house), Marilyn Davenport writes:

“Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black. Besides, I only sent it to a few people—mostly people I didn’t think would be upset by it.”

What else is there to say but, let Campaign ’12 begin!

(photo 1: Friends and family of Stanley Ann Dunham via NYT.  caption: Barack Obama with his mother in Hawaii. photo 2: Marilyn Davenport (via OC Weekly). caption: The image attached to an email distributed among Orange County Republicans and Tea Baggers.)