On American primetime news, not unlike in India, the more stridently an anchor takes on the bully pulpit, the more his TRPs climb. CNN?s Lou Dobbs has built his brand by being an immigration bully. The latest ?alien? to draw his wrath is of course the US President himself. To be fair to Dobbs, the birther storm does not originate with him. While, say, the charge that Obama was a secret Muslim got more mainstream press during the presidential campaign, the birther issue was thriving on the fringes. Here, Obama?s Hawaii birth certificate was named a forgery, and thus his eligibility to be US President challenged. Crackpot litigation with this theme was dismissed everywhere, including at the US Supreme Court.

Dead is how the CNN president, forced to give an accounting for the hullabaloo, described the topic. Archconservatives Ann Coulter and Bill O?Reilly agreed. Alas, Dobbs got more and more play with each disclaimer. And there is now a birther Bill with 11 House cosponsors. It seeks that all presidential candidates provide copies of birth certificates, carrying on the pretense that Obama?s copy is questionable, with the allied suggestion that the state of Hawaii has colluded in a forgery. This too can go down as profit in the ledgers of Dobbs-style advocacy.

A public opinion poll now making the headlines found only 42% of Republican respondents thought Obama was a natural born US citizen. Only 47% of respondents from the South, whether Democrat or Republican,concurred. But, overall, 90% of Democrats kept the faith. So, here?s another idiocy into which Dobbs has managed to breathe life: despite much recent play on hope and reconciliation, the US lives a deep chasm between the left and the right, the North and the South.

On the flip side, there is the Schwarzenegger for President campaign. There are people asking if it matters that Obama was born in Kenya or grew up in Indonesia. There is the hope that the US will get what India did, when it put the question of Sonia Gandhi?s eligibility to rest

?renuka.bisht@expressindia.com