Our speaker Tim Rutten was introduced by Rich Hutton. Rich told us Tim’s career as a journalist spans more than 30 years at The Times. Prior to becoming a columnist for the Calendar section in 2002, he held a number of positions, including city bureau chief, metro reporter, editorial writer, assistant national editor, Opinion editor and assistant editor for the Editorial Page. He started at the paper in 1972 as a copy editor in the View section. He has won a number of awards and on Friday after our meeting at dinner he is going to receive the Criminal Court Award one that Rich received in the past.

Tim said that in preparing to speak to us he considered the either the Dodgers franchisee holder Frank McCourt fiasco or the ‘birther blather’. He chose the birther topic. He recently wrote an op-ed on the subject I think it summarizes it better than I can write from my notes. He wrote

“Winston Churchill famously described fanatics as those who “can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject.” It’s an appraisal that also could be applied to those deranged Americans who continue to insist that President Obama is not U.S. citizen.

“The so-called birther fantasy tends to go hand in hand with the belief that the president is secretly a Muslim militant scheming to impose Sharia law on the United States. American politics are no more immune to the corrosive effects of irrational and conspiratorial thinking than those of any other nation, which is why Republican leaders are courting the perilous and the unpredictable when they wink at this latest iteration of the paranoid style.”

He expressed his disappointment that people change the facts when it doesn’t agree with their thinking. He cited situations where people go on the internet and Goggle for something written to support their ‘facts’, even if it is not true. He said the number one book in advance books on order at Amazon.com sales is a birther book scheduled to come out in the coming weeks. Even with the birth certificate produced by the president the birther movement lives on. Some believing birth certificate is a fake. He cited a similar situation in the 1830’s when the ‘Millerites’ were a religious body that believed they had calculated the date of the end of the world. Even after date after date were missed, many continued to believe even though the facts did not support it.

He closed with hoping that people would debate facts rather than make up their own facts. Also, he answered a question about the McCourt’s. He was passionate that their financial irresponsibility has hurt a long loved baseball franchise and hoped for them the coldest spot in Boston as their reward!

P.S. After I wrote my notes above on Saturday April 30 times Tim’s speech appears on Page A25 entitled “The Eerie Denial of Facts” should you have not been at club on Friday the 29th. A web link is: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0430-rutten-20110430,0,6735231.column