birther queen no more

msnbc — orange county dentist and lawyer orly taitz, better known as the "queen bee" of the birther movement, which challenges whether barack obama is a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as president, appeared on "countdown with keith olbermann" last night to announce the end of her more than yearlong pursuit of obama's ouster. msnbc host olbermann, among many in the press, had been relentlessly critical of taitz' unsuccessful crusade against the president, which has thus far resulted in $20,000 of legal fines against taitz. taitz gave a soft-spoken, knowledgeable, well-reasoned and even literate mea culpa for her "quixotic pursuit" of the president and her "unjustified harassment" of everyone whom she thought was in her way or merely contradicted her. she then bluntly denounced as "bottom-feeders" all those she had been consorting with since she began her crusade in november 2008. lastly she announced that she would be turning her "defend our freedoms foundation" into a mental health clinic for right-wing extremists. at the end of the segment, olbermann produced a giant prop check for $20,072, the sum of her legal fines and the interest accrued on them, and introduced retired major general jerry white, the president of the national infantry foundation, and judge clay d. land of georgia. taitz beamed as she offered the check to white, whose foundation was named as the intended recipient of the funds by judge land, who levied the fine against taitz for misconduct in october 2009.