Ni Leboo Joo

The worst insult in some far-right circles in America nowadays is to be called “a Kenyan.”

The label acquired racist overtones when Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, won the US presidency, sparking emotional denunciations among the so-called birthers, who say Obama should not have competed for the presidency in the first place because he was allegedly not born in the US, and was in fact a Kenyan.

Last week, when Senator Olympia Snowe broke with fellow Republicans and voted with Obama in favour of health care reform, she came in for such a barrage of criticism from the right that a satirical blog, the Borowitz Report, carried a mock news story to the effect that she had been labelled “a Kenyan” by her party.

“This vote is going to raise suspicions, once again, that Sen Snowe was born in Kenya,” the blog purported to quote Republican Party chairman Michael Steele, adding; “We demand that she prove that she is definitely not Kenyan.”

The blog also purported to quote Orly Taitz, leader of the “birther” movement, as terming Snowe’s vote “textbook Kenyan” behaviour, because, “She’s putting her tribe first.”