From Think Progress:

The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress:

• Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”
• Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
• Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

The memo above also resembles the talking points being distributed by FreedomWorks for pushing an anti-health reform assault all summer. Patients United, a front group maintained by Americans for Prosperity, is currently busing people all over the country for more protests against Democratic members. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the NRCC, has endorsed the strategy, telling the Politico the days of civil town halls are now “over.” Meanwhile, AHIP, the trade group and lobbying juggernaut representing the health insurance industry is sending staffers to monitor town halls and other right-wing front groups are stepping up their ad campaign to smear reform efforts. The strategy for defeating reform — recently outlined by an influential lobbyist to the Hill newspaper as “delay” then “kill” — is becoming apparent. By delaying a vote until after the August recess, lobbyists are now seizing upon recess town halls as opportunities to ambush lawmakers and fool them into believing there is wide opposition to reform.

It's already started.  From this weekend, a story in the Austin American-Statesman:

Back in Central Texas while Congress is on a month-long recess, Congressman Lloyd Doggett faced an angry reception at a town hall meeting at an Austin Randalls store yesterday.

Doggett, D-Austin, spoke at the Randalls at Brodie and Slaughter lanes on Saturday. A video of the event on YouTube shows many in the crowd showed up with signs denouncing President Obama's proposed health care plan.

Witnesses say that when Doggett was asked if he would support the plan even if he found his constituents opposed it, Doggett said he would still support the plan. From there, the crowd began chanting "Just Say No," and overwhelmed the congressman as he moved through the crowd and into the parking lot.

"The folks there thought their voices weren't being heard," said Kathy Acosta, a Bastrop resident who attended the meeting at Randalls and another one later that day in her hometown. "They were angry, but they were respectful. There wasn't any violence."

No violence.  Wow, that's a relief.

I think there is an important distinction here.  It's one thing for activists to show up at a town hall meeting in order to ensure that their concerns are heard and addressed.  It's quite another for them to show up in order to disrupt and close down the town hall meeting altogether (or, if not close it down, limit its utility).  The strategy here is the latter, and while it may be successful, I'm not sure it is going to win over many converts.

Dentist/lawyer Orly Taitz is one of those charlatans who has a lawsuit filed against President Obama alleging he's a foreign-born Muslim ferner who is a Muslim not born in the United States of Merica, and a socialist to boot. 

She filed papers last Friday which included the alleged "real" Obama birth certificate, showing conclusively that he was born in Kenya.  She didn't have the actual Kenyan birth certificate, just this photo.

In her motion, she writes:

The undersigned counsel for Plaintiffs has acquired possession of a color copy of one certain document (attached as Exhibit A to this motion), regarding which there are no ready means of authentication except by recovery of the original document.

The fringe is going nuts over this, including World Net Daily, which has posted some helpful blowups (click to embiggen):

Is it authentic?

Well, in order to believe Taitz and WND, one would have to assume that this document was requested 45 years ago (in 1964), preserved that entire time, withheld through the entire election and transition period, and yet somehow ended up in the hands of someone sympathetic to Orly Taitz.

That stretches credulity.

But why rely on lack of credulity, when mere facts shoot this thing down?

Consider:

The document states it is from the "Republic of Kenya" and dated February 17, 1964.  Neat trick, seeing as how Kenya didn't become a Republic until December 12, 1964.

In fact, during most of 1964, including when this document was created and certified, Kenya was known as the "Dominion of Kenya", not the "Republic of Kenya".

The document states that Obama was born in a hospital in Mombassa, Kenya, in 1961.  Problem? In 1961, Mombassa was in ZANZIBAR, not in Kenya.

Others have pointed out some other oddities about the "real" Kenyan birth certificate:

• It’s number 44 O 47 is a bit coincidental with 44th President Obama being age 47.
• The name EF Lavender. Earth Friendly Lavender is a detergent
• The Coast General Hospital is actually called the Coast Provincial General Hospital
• Obama's father (born in 1936) would have been 24 or 25 when he was born and not 26.  And his father's birthplace was called the “Central Nyanza District” at the time, not Nyanza Province. The regions were changed to provinces in 1970.
• Would a birth certificate in a country with a large Muslim population actually ask for someone's "Christian" name?
• The "date of registration" is given as August 5, 1961.  That's a Saturday, when government offices are typically closed.
• Paper looks kinda nice and non-yellowed for something 45 years old.

And finally, most jpegs and other images (as well as documents, music files) contain "mark-up data", hidden data behind what you see.  Reportedly, the photo of the Kenyan birth certificate contains IPTC markup metadata reveals it to be a fake:

NOTICE: This image is a work of parody and political commentary. It is not a genuine government document. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. A certified copy of his birth record is freely available online. If you thought this was Obama’s real birth certificate, a “smoking gun” proving he’s not a natural-born citizen, then congratulations. You are an idiot. I made this from scratch. It is completely fake, and no document from Kenya or the United Kingdom resembles it.Obama’s president, and will be for the next 3 1/2 to 7 1/2 years. Get used to it.

So, you know, nothing to see here.

A whopping 58 percent of Republicans either think Barack Obama wasn't born in the US (28 percent) or aren't sure (30 percent). A mere 42 percent think he was.

That means a majority of Republicans polled either don't know about — or don't believe the seemingly incontrovertible evidence Obama's camp has presented over and over and over that he was born in Hawaii in '61.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 7/27-30. All adults. MoE 2% (No trend lines)

So 11 percent of Americans are Obama-hating conspiracy theorists. How do they break down?

It looks like there's a strong regional aspect to this (the chart denotes ALL respondents, regardless of political party):

Politico’s Glenn Thrush asks, “When do we start a serious dialog about the Birther movement being a proxy for racism that is unacceptable to articulate in more direct terms?”

By the way, I gave kudos to the conservative National Review a week or so ago for boldly stating that this whole birther nonsense was bullshit.  I take it back.

UPDATE (MORE CHARTS): Brendan Nyhan compiles a useful chart of Obama-related misconceptions:

Transparency in government?  Sure.

But, as the American Thinker notes, there are limits:

As evident is that public officials are under no “transparency” obligation to address all questions. Were the right fringe to allege that Barack Obama is in fact a woman, and demand a photograph of his penis to definitively prove otherwise, and the left fringe retaliated by alleging that Sarah Palin is a man, and requested the same sort of photographic proof, Andrew [Sullivan] would surely join me in concluding that both politicians have some right to privacy. Right?

Right.

Although, to be honest, I doubt that Obama holds a huge privacy interest in his original long form birth certificate, especially after his short form has already been publicly produced.  Perhaps there is something embarrassing about the info on the longer form (his father isn't really his father, one commentor here speculated), but that has nothing to do with the salient question: where was Obama born?

However, at some point, the craziness has to stop.  Ten months ago, there was a clamoring for Obama's birth certificate.  The State of Hawaii produced it (the official short form version) which showed that Obama was born in Hawaii.  Did that make the controversy go away? 

No.

So what makes anybody think that producing the longer form will make it go away?  It just kicks the can further down the road, but the game is still being played.

And why would conspiracy theorists believe the long form birth certificate?  They already believe that Hawaiian officials have produced a fake and/or false short form version.  So they're suddenly going to shut up when the State of Hawaii produces the "long form" version?

Kevin Drum nails it:

If someone produces actual evidence of scandal or wrongdoing, then you have to respond.  But if mere conspiracy theorizing is all that's required, then the sky's the limit.  Bill Clinton has to prove he wasn't transporting bales of coke through Mena airfield.  Barack Obama has to prove his mother wasn't in Kenya in August 1961.  Sarah Palin has to prove she wasn't faking a pregnancy in 2008.  John McCain has to prove he didn't collaborate with the enemy while he was in a Vietnamese prison camp.

Conspiracy theorists will always be with us.  But the adult community doesn't have to humor them.  All that does is make things worse.

"Birthers" will argue: "Well, why doesn't he produce it *anyway*?!?  Humor us.  Make this go away.  the fact that he won't produce the long form only makes it look *more* likely that Obama is hiding something"

I've already addressed the "make this go away" issue.  Producing the long form birth certificate won't make the "birthers" go away.

But what's more, the birther argument presupposes that Obama is actually sweating this issue.  And he's not.  There's no closed door meeting in the White House, where a bunch of grim advisors are wringing their hands about "what to do about the birther issue".

You know where those meetings are happening?  In the offices of GOP legislators.  They have to confront angry Republican voters, and dodge questions about their position on the birther issue.

So… why shouldn't Obama produce this full birth certificate?  No reason.  But seeing as how it won't end the controversy, and the controversy hurts the GOP, why would he???

RELATED:  A leeading birther site closes down.  Follow the link to read why.  It's funny.