Who the Hell is Orly Taitz?

        The circus is coming to town! On Wednesday, July 1, Orly Taitz will bring her dog and pony show to St. Louis and Jefferson City. Want to go? Good luck. It’s at an undisclosed location and by secret invitation only. I don’t have the brass decoder ring or know the handshake, so I probably can’t get in. But apparently five or six of Missouri’s legislator’s do have the credentials. Taitz says she will have Sen. Jim Lembke and Rep. Mike McGhee in attendance, with several other yet-to-be-named politicians.

       Let’s hope Keith Olbermann doesn’t find out about it or Cynthia may have to share her 15-minutes of “fame.” But back to Dr. Taitz, the California dentist-turned-political-coo-coo. Orly is also a “lawyer,” having earned her degree from the William Howard Taft online correspondence school. This allows her to practice in California, but not elsewhere, nor is she a member of the American Bar Association.

       The Moldovan-born star of nutwingery is the leading advocate of the Birther Movement, which contends that Barry Hussein Soetoro (aka President Barack Obama) is not a U.S. citizen, having never produced a birth certificate to her satisfaction. (A certificate is, in fact, on the Internet.) If you don’t buy into that, she has a back up claim. You can only be a natural-born citizen if both parents were American citizens at the time of a baby’s birth—a claim that would invalidate the presidency of Chester Arthur.

       You say you thought all this foolishness ended after the election? Not as long as Orly can keep doubt alive with her conspiracy theories—which she prefers to call the “Eligibility Movement.” (Cheeky bloggers refer to the group as “birfers” and Orly as “The Queen Bee of Birferstan.”)

       Taitz says that Obama is an “usurper.” That is the kindest thing she says. More often he is referred to as “an arrogant jerk from Africa and Indonesia,” an “idiot,” “traitor,” and “communist,” and “Muslim.” Anybody who disagrees with her is an “Obama thug.”

       Orly has a bit of a persecution complex, too. She claims her PayPal account and website have been invaded by hackers and even her case on the U.S. Supreme Court docket removed surreptitiously. She found it strange that her husband’s car had mechanical problems and two weeks later she had a fuel leak. When she traced a hate email to the state of Washington, she concluded there was an Obama connection since his mother attended the University of Seattle for a while.

       Even some in the Birther Movement think Orly makes them seem too whacky. One cohort said, “She’s hurts the cause” and needs to go “back to practicing dentistry.” Conservative talk-show host Michael Medved labeled Orly and her followers “crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitive, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters.” Ohh…that apparently hurt, because Orly asked for a retraction. She was better received by radio pastor Wiley Drake, who gained some attention by admitting he prayed for Obama’s death.

       Frankly, I feel bad giving any ink to this woman. What’s worse is knowing that we have five members of the Missouri legislature who would give her the time of day. Let’s hope they come to their senses before July 1 and that Keith Olbermann is still obsessed with Michael Jackson.

Image credit: OC Weekly.com