Anderson Cooper Sees A Surge In Hate Mail Since He’s Started Going After Birthers

Outside of his almost universally acclaimed reporting from disaster areas and war zones, recently Anderson Cooper has found another niche for his typically non-partisan but still confrontational style: dismantling the birther movement. Last night, he admitted he’s starting to pay the price for repeatedly attacking the birthers in the currency of “vitriolic emails,” which have increased since his coverage intensified.

Cooper welcomed a bipartisan panel featuring RedState.com editor Erick Erickson, CNN contributor Roland Martin (alas, sans ascot), and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin to discuss the birther movement and whether a long-form birth certificate really will satisfy their curiosity. In addressing Erickson, who, despite being anti-Obama, has denounced the birther movement, he admitted that, since his interview with birther army doctor Terrence Lakin, “I’ve received a lot of emails– uh, vitriolic emails– over the last couple of days from birthers who seem to kind of change the game mid-stride.” Erickson ends up agreeing with Martin and Toobin that “these people are masters of moving the goalpost” and that there is little chance that those claiming President Barack Obama is not a citizen will ever find definitive proof to dissuade them from that belief. Toobin put it a bit more crudely: “These people are bigots, they’re racists, they’re freaks, they’re lunatics– these are not rational people in American politics.”

Video below:

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