In the past week, two news stories arose that, despite their comedic value, served only to shave still more dignity from this country’s dignity-deficient conservative voice; The Obama Muslim-smearing that reared its ugly head before the election is still a right-wing trope — along with the right’s familiar tabloid circus fare.

First, in an interview with Oregon-based, nationally-syndicated conservative radio host Rusty Humphries, Sarah Palin stated that if she makes a run at the presidency in 2012, President Obama’s birth certificate would once again become an issue.

“I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records — all of that is fair game,” Palin said. “The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area.” According to a Politico report, however, McCain’s campaign did, in fact, look into the issue extensively. Finding nothing to be out of the ordinary, they dropped it.

Just one day later, Arlington, Tennessee mayor Russell Wiseman reopened the ludicrous debate centered on our current president’s religious leanings. On his Facebook page, he accused our “muslim president” of purposefully interfering with a storied Christian tradition; apparently Obama chose to air his address on the war in Afghanistan during “The Charlie Brown Christmas Special.”

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our Muslim president is there, what a load … try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’.”

He goes on to say that, “You Obama people need to move to a Muslim country. Oh wait, that’s America. Pitiful.” But that’s not the worst of it. The rhetoric gets even more antiquated: “you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that only property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different.”

While neither of these stories are anything new from the increasingly-distant American right, both show how ignorance has become mainstream in 21st-century America.

For instance, former CNN host Lou Dobbs is still a “fan” of Mr. Wiseman’s facebook group “Support Russell Wiseman.” And Sarah Palin, of course, was almost elected vice-president last year.

Even a cursory examination of the issues called into question by Palin and Wiseman finds them to be both superfluous and ridiculous. Wiseman, in a post dedicated exclusively to Obama’s choice of when to air his speech, said nothing about the speech itself. Similarly, Palin’s criticisms stemmed from the President’s country of birth rather than his policy

Conservatives on the far right, such as Palin and Wiseman, seem to continuously skim substantive criticism, and instead pull long-dead vacuous tricks.

The fodder that fuels the conservative base is truly vile.