That might be true in the abstract but anyone who had more than the slightest awareness knows that what was directed at Obama was based racism. The same people made racist comments about Africa in general, said he was inarticulate in ways straight out of minstrel shows a century ago, refused to accept his Christianity insisting that he was secretly following their favorite Other religion, and used various threats and rhetoric from the Jim Crow-era south against someone born in Hawaii.

You don’t lynch someone in effigy because you’re trying to say that you don’t think they aren’t 35.

The racist notion of Obama being a foreign “other” was intrinsic to Birtherism. There is nothing inherent about that, no. It was an explicit piece of context.

It is known and not under any debate that John McCain was not born on US soil (he was born on an army base in Panama), and yet Obama’s legitimacy was the one in question. It’s very obvious why one candidate was considered a foreign other and one was not.