Tag: colonel birther

He is the medal-winning former Army doctor from Greeley who became a hero to "birther" conspiracy theorists like Denver radio talker Peter Boyles when he refused to deploy to Afghanistan, demanding to see his commander-in-chief's birth certificate. Lakin didn't get to see any birth certificate. He was court martialed, stripped of his rank, salary and pension and hauled off to Leavenworth. After six months in prison, he is coming home. His supporters are trying to organize a rally to greet him at the airport in Baltimore, where his wife and three children live. As Salon's Justin Elliot reports, the Lakin saga is perhaps the most tragic story so far to "emerge from the birther carnival."

Colorado Senator Mark Udall's proposal that Democratic and Republican members of the House and Senate abandon the segregated State of the Union seating of years past and sit together Tuesday night has caught on. Udall plans to sit with GOP members of the Colorado delegation. South Carolina GOP Rep. Joe Wilson, who heckled the president last year, is sitting with Democratic colleagues from the House Armed Services Committee. Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down a seating invitation from GOP majority leader Eric Cantor, but she plans to sit with GOP Maryland Rep. Roscoe Bartlett.

Denver talk-radio host Peter Boyles interviewed Lietenant Colonel Terrence Lakin's spokesperson Margaret Hemenway Tuesday, the second day in a row as the "birther" showdown unfolds in Washington. Boyles has admitted he is fascinated by the story of Greeley native Lakin, a decorated 18-year Army medic who refuses to deploy for the second time to Afghanistan because he doesn't fully believe Pres. Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States. Lakin is the latest and highest ranking of a handful of soldiers who have subscribed to the mostly right-wing theory that Obama has hidden or falsified the usual documents that would prove his citizenship and that he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars "lawyering up" to protect their secrecy. Boyles, at the very least a semi-believer in the conspiracy himself, clearly admires the man the media is now calling "Colonel Birther."

Terry Lakin, the Army Doctor who has refused orders to deploy to Afghanistan, has posted online the letter he wrote to Pres. Obama last...