Jamelle Bouie points out that attempts to draw an equivalence between Republican birthers and the comparably smaller number of Democratic truthers are missing an obvious and crucial distinction:
Of course, there's one major distinction between Democratic "trutherism" and Republican "birtherism": At no point were Democrats demanding trutherism from Democratic congressional candidates, much less presidential candidates. Despite the widespread presence of truther beliefs among Democrats, friendly state lawmakers never passed truther-influenced legislation, and trutherism remained on the far fringe of liberal discourse.
By contrast (and this is an important contrast), birtherism is all but an established issue priority within the Republican coalition; GOP presidential candidates will be judged on their adherence to birther conspiracies, and the eventual nominee will have to placate birthers for success. In other words, even with the (formerly?) widespread presence of truther beliefs among Democrats, it's still hard to make a direct comparison between trutherism and birtherism.
Recently some Republican elites have begun to push back against the birthers. But we have yet to see a prominent Republican do what Bill Clinton did in 2007 when faced with lunatics alleging "9/11 was an inside job."
An accusation of mass murder is a more serious accusation than believing Obama wasn't born in the United States. Still, compare Clinton's forceful, outraged response to a 9/11 truther to the relatively mild rebukes of even those Republicans running for president who have refused to acquiesce to the birther conspiracy. Not a single Republican of comparable status has had the courage to ask, "How dare you?" when confronted with birtherism, despite the tighter grip it has on conservative consciousness. And I doubt any will.
