It's telling that the right-wing birther phenomena has swelled to such proportions that we're now seeing offshoots and subsections to the debunked ODS conspiracy theory spring up. And the brand that Huckabee is now giving voice to, and was pushing all week during his public “Kenya” meltdown, is something akin to Birther Lite. (Or, highbrow birtherism.)

Huckabee, a possible presidential candidate, insists he doesn't question whether Obama was born in America or that the president's birth certificate is legit. On that front, Huckabee would seem to dismiss the birther nonsense. But listen to Huckabee rhetoric about Obama. Listen to how Huckabee raises the dark specter of Obama being different, and foreign, and not like you and me. Listen to how Huckabee attacks the president for being anti-American. Listen to all that gobbledygook and guess what, you're listening to birther rhetoric.

What Huckabee's doing with his misguided Obama attacks, and with his distorted telling of the president's youth, is setting aside the obviously false conspiracy theories about Obama's birth certificate and skipping right to the meat of the birther critique.

Behold:

And I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas. And I just do think that there is - again, I am not saying he's not a citizen, I've never said that, I've said the opposite. I've never said he's a Muslim.

See the game Huckabee is playing? I'm not a birther! But Obama has a “different wordview” based on his “very different experience” growing up in a distinctly un-American way.

Huckabee reiterated those points on The O'Reilly Factor:

The original point of the birther movement was to claim Obama was not born in America and therefore he's ineligible to serve as President of the United States. Since then, the movement has expanded that critique to include a more sweeping denunciation of Obama as being foreign or foreign-influenced and not like you or me to the point of being un-American. And guess what, all week long Huckabee was giving voice to that unseemly attack.

So just because Huckabee doesn't raise doubts about Obama's birth certificate doesn't mean Huckabee's not a birther. It just means he's practicing Birther Lite.