MULTIPLE BIRTHERS EMERGE (OR REEMERGE) FROM THE SLIME

There are three -- count 'em, three -- birther stories in the news right now. (Four if you go back to last week.) First there's this, from World Net Daily:

Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told WND he has assigned a five-member "Cold Case Posse" to investigate the authenticity of Barack Obama's birth certificate....

As WND reported, Arpaio is responding to a complaint brought to his office by representatives of the Surprise Tea Party in Surprise, Ariz., who have expressed in writing their concerns that the voting rights of Maricopa County residents in the 2012 presidential election could be compromised if Obama were to use a forged birth certificate to establish his eligibility under Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution....

The identities of the five individuals assigned to the Cold Case Posse investigation of the Obama birth certificate are being withheld from the public, in order to protect the individuals involved from both public reaction and from questions that are certain to arise from the media....

Then this, from the Sacramento Bee:

A leading figure in the "birther" movement is mulling returning to the California ballot in another bid for statewide office.

Republican Orly Taitz, who ran in the GOP primary for secretary of state last year, said today she is "absolutely" considering challenging Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2012....

And this, from Politico:

Legendary singer Pat Boone still isn’t convinced that President Obama was born in the U.S.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Boone, a member of the Beverly Hills Tea Party, attended a California GOP event on Friday night and expressed his skepticism about the president’s birthplace.

Asked if believes Obama was born in the U.S., Boone said, "I don't. ... I was in Kenya about a year and a half ago and everybody there says, you know, your president was born here." ...

Taitz is thoroughly marginalized, but Arpaio and Boone aren't -- Rick Perry personally called Arpaio earlier this month, and Arpaio subsequently received a phone call from Mitt Romney and had a meeting with Michele Bachmann. (Arpaio was Romney's "honorary Arizona chairman" in 2008, though Arpaio hasn't endorsed anyone yet this year.) And as for Boone:

Boone endorsed nearly 90 congressional contenders and recorded robocalls that went to an estimated 7 million households during the 2010 midterms. He writes a weekly column for the Republican-aligned website Newsmax and serves as the lead spokesman for the 60 Plus Association, a group that bills itself as the conservative counterpart to AARP. He's now wading into the contentious debate over entitlement reform....

When they picked up their phones last fall, millions of seniors heard a friendly Boone on the other end -- a familiar, comforting voice from the past just checking in to let them know that Tim Scott or Kristi Noem or Stephen Fincher was running for Congress and, well, they ought to vote for them....

Boone, who's known to cram Fox News appearances into his schedule, takes pride in how active he is on behalf of the conservative cause and for candidates like [Allen] West --- the controversial freshman House Republican who, Boone argued, would make a good vice presidential candidate....

In the GOP, Boone and Arpaio -- two birthers -- are thoroughly mainstream. Oh, and so is Donald Trump, the once and (who the hell knows?) possibly future birther, whose ring was kissed last week by Rick Perry (or as Trump calls him, "Jim" Perry).

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(Taitz story via Rumproast.)