Q. Why did it take Obama two and a half years to post his birth certificate? A. It didn’t.
Chris Espinosa:
What the birthers see is The Other. They look in the cedar chest and see their calligraphic Birth Certificate with flourishes and footprints and gold seals and doctor names, and take that as What A Birth Certificate Is. It’s ceremonial, official-looking, and old-fashioned, traits that they associate with authority. When they see a cold, austere, government-generated computer form without the ceremonial flourishes they expect, they disbelieve. It Is Not Like Mine. and that plays into the fundamental bias—He Is Not Like Me.