From a reader in response to my column:

Mr. Goldberg,
You are a skilled practitioner of the art of having things both ways. By calling the ‘birther’ hypothesis “vastly more plausible” than the ‘truther’ hypothesis, you do your bit to contribute to ‘birthism.’ After all, your column presents a scenario for the birther view, and, at bottom, it does not matter that you say you don’t believe in either birthism or truthism. So, you get to offer a case for the ‘birther’ view at the same time that you profess not to believe it. NIce work.
This is clearly a trick you have mastered. In Liberal Fascism ….
I don’t really see how you can undo this obscene mischief. I suppose there’s no good reason for you to stop indulging in cheap eristics on the birther/truther issue.

The elipses covers a fairly typical attack on my book, which for the moment is a distraction.

But it is all quite cleverly done, I think. Here’s the problem. It is simply an objective fact, not denied by this reader (nor, I think, by any reasonable person) that the birther theory is a vastly more plausible theory than the truther narrative. I also think that any morally grounded person would see the truther theory as an even more vastly evil and dangerous vision. I have said many times I don’t buy the birther story. But somehow I am a birther fellow traveler for pointing out that the truthers are bat guano crazy and peddlers of a disgusting blood libel against the American regime (not the Bush administration, the American regime).

Meanwhile, this reader says nothing in defense of the profound hypocrisy of nearly the entire liberal establishment (David Corn and Martin Peretz) excepted. Talk about having it both ways! In July, Clarence Page, EJ Dionne, Joe Conason, The New Republic, The Nation, the entire lefty blogosphere were all insisting that the Birthers were a cancer on conservatism and the GOP, a sign of racism and fascism and lord knows what else metastasizing on the Right. Now, when it turns out that Van Jones is a Truther, belief in a vastly more evil and crazy conspiracy theory is no big deal. Here’s Clarence Page on the birthers (and truthers) on August 3. And here he is decrying the “witch hunt” against Van Jones this week.

But, yes, I am the one who has mastered the art of having it both ways. Shame on me.