The Zullo enigma

The birthers seem to think that every time I write about Mike Zullo, it is in anxiety over some impending universe-shattering event, any day now, that will not only bring down the President but also anyone who supports him and folks like me, who they call O-Bots¹. In fact, for someone who blogs about birthers, Zullo is about the only game in town. Even the birthers don’t believe Shrimpton, and most have realized that Orly Taitz is wholly incompetent to accomplish anything with a lawsuit and Larry Klayman isn’t much better. Apart from Zullo, birtherism is over except for Zullo and his Zullo-Bots™.

The birthers are right that their opponents are interested in Zullo, but they are mistaken that the focus is his repeatedly promised, but never delivered, decisive evidence. Zullo has proven wholly incompetent to develop real evidence, and he lacks the resources to come up with a real scandal, if should there be one. No, what’s interesting is whether there is a scandal in the Cold Case Posse (CCO) itself.

There really is a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Cold Case Posse, Inc. You can find it registered with the State of Arizona. It has a Tax ID number. It has an organization, a membership, and it raises money. Beyond a few details associated with the organization and a massive quantity of self-generated publicity, we really don’t know a lot about the Posse except that they have identified some bloggers as their enemies, they think there’s something wrong with President Obama’s identity papers, and they have generally proven to be incompetent and dishonest.

Brian Reilly has provided a rare inside view of the CCP though the anecdotes in his recent article here, but lots of big questions remain. My two biggest questions are: 1) What sort of money flows in birther organizations? and 2) Is Mike Zullo a con man or a true believer? In my mind, after Reilly’s Part 1, neither of those questions gets answered. Reilly says at one point that he was convinced that Zullo really believed some crazy Lord Monckton/MI-6 story, but con men are very good at convincing others of their sincerity. What Reilly heard is helpful but what he believed is less so.

Unquestionably Zullo says things that aren’t true, and this is an objective point of evidence; however, people say things that aren’t true for various reasons:

1. They believe they are being truthful
2. They intentionally lie for a nefarious purpose
3. They intentionally lie to support what they believe is a greater truth

In Zullo’s case, I think we can rule out number 1. While Zullo may have said false things that he thought were truthful, he certainly knows now that they weren’t, and his silence becomes intentional deception.

Would you tell a lie if it meant saving the lives of others? I think I would. Does Zullo believe so firmly that Obama is literally destroying the country so that any number of lies, false promises, and failure to correct past mistakes is justified by the greater truth of how evil Obama is? If this is the case, then the obvious flaw is that one ends up lying to themself, and becomes incapable of telling truth from fantasy.

In the other hand, Zullo may be a simple con man, the the Zullo-Bots his victims. This is why details about CCP finances are so critical to understanding the birthers.

¹For some time I have been tolerant of the label O-bot, taking it to be a synonym for “anti-birther.” Further research indicates that my usage is not general, and therefore I’m no longer going to use the term approvingly. Anti-birthers are not in general Obama supporters: some are and some are not.