Republicans, we warned you this would happen if you didn’t act to quell the birthers. Now you’re hostages to the birther movement. Is this the image you want to project? Mike Stark from the Huffington Post went to Capitol Hill to ask Republicans if they believe Obama is an natural-born citizen. Watch the Republicans try to weasel out of giving him a straight answer:
So far I’ve only seen two Republicans give a straight answer on the “question:” Mike Castle and Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ). Even leading conservative senator Inhofe has twisted himself in knots over the “question.” He first told Politico:
“They have a point,” he said of the birthers last week. “I don’t discourage it. … But I’m going to pursue defeating [Obama] on things that I think are very destructive to America.”
He must have felt some heat from that answer, because he later tried to clarify by saying:
“The point that they make is the Constitutional mandate that the U.S. president be a natural born citizen, and the White House has not done a very good job of dispelling the concerns of these citizens,” he said. “My focus is on issues where I can make a difference to stop the liberal agenda being pushed by President Obama.”
Inhofe tries to do a Liz Cheney, blaming Obama for the Republicans’ own crazies. I’d like to remind everyone that Obama did release his birth certificate and it didn’t stop the birthers (because they’re not governed by reason and logic).
But seriously Republicans -do you really want to be the Crazy Eileen party? (If you missed Crazy Eileen, see this post from Sunday). When even Ann Coulter is calling your group “cranks,” you know you have a problem.
Update: I guess Republicans don’t want to be the Crazy Eileen party because the bill declaring that Obama was born in Hawai’i passed the House unanimously. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when the Congressmen have to face those angry birther constituents. Remember, we told you this would happen. There’s no way you can give a nudge and a wink to the crazy base in this case.