I decided to get caught up on what happened to Terrence Lakin, after he dropped out of the media spotlight. Terrence Lakin, for those who don't remember the name (how I envy you), was the Army Lieutenant-Colonel, who refused an order to deploy to Afghanistan, in 2010, because he felt that President Obama was not a natural-born citizen, and that any orders that came from him or any of his subordinates were therefore illegitimate. Lakin's visibility peaked, when he had a round of interviews with the cable news networks, including one where he was scolded by CNN's Anderson Cooper for having his attourney do most/all of the talking.
Bear in mind, the Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth for Barack Obama was published almost two years prior to Lakin's momentary grabbing of the spotlight. This guy's refusal to deploy allowed the Birther movement to trot him out and grab mainstream media coverage, as an organization in its death throes does.
The court marshall that he invited came to pass, and after entering a guilty plea to the charge of "missing movement by design" (i.e. failing to deploy, as ordered), he was sentenced to six months in prison and punitively dismissed from service (that's equivilant to dishonorable discharge for commissioned officers). Had he completed his service period, which was scheduled to end this year, he'd have had a $45,000-per-year pension to live on, right now. Instead, he's having difficulty restarting his medical career, because, for some reason, there's a question whether or not he'd obey medical practice laws signed by the sitting President. Additionally, since the long-form version of Obama's Certificate of Live Birth was published, the donations that had been funding Lakin through his post-incarceration unemployment have dried up, as only the craziest of the craziest crazies (or the racistiest of the racistiest racists) still remain in the Birther movement.
What really caught my attention, though, was his feigned plea for the court's mercy. During his sentencing hearing, Lakin claimed that he was influenced by others in the Birther movement into making poor decisions, and that he was willing to rectify those poor decisions, if given the chance. That might have held some water, if he hadn't concluded his very first letter from prison, written while he was in solitary confinement, with the line, "If nothing else, I am glad that it was a time for many people to converge, meet and carry on this important issue." He then proceeded to continue writing for Birther websites and made occasional call-in interviews for Birther podcasts, during his incarceration. Lying is alright, as long as you only do it out of one side of your mouth, I suppose, but it would be nice if the other side of his mouth wasn't devoted to deliberately spewing misinformation.
Incidentally, why do I keep looking for stupid on the internet? It's not a challenge, and success only brings pain. Then again, in this case, the guy's still reaping his comeuppance, so maybe it's not quite so bad, in this particular instance.
