Just when you thought the question of President Obama’s birthplace had been settled last April with the release of his famous long-form birth certificate, Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has decided to give a wink and a nod to his party’s hardcore birthers.
In an interview published published by Parade magazine last Sunday, the following exchange took place:
Q. Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?
A. I have no reason to think otherwise.
Q. That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—
A. Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.
Say what? Can anyone explain what the second clause in that sentence has to do with the first clause? Is Perry saying that if President Obama saw Perry’s birth certificate, that would assure him that Obama’s birth certificate is genuine?
Q. But you’ve seen his.
A. I don’t know. Have I?
Q. You don’t believe what’s been released?
A. I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.
Q. And?
A. That came up.
Q. And he said?
A. He doesn’t think it’s real.
Q. And you said?
A. I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the president of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.
But oddly, Perry didn’t stop there and cut his losses. He said something even stranger in an interview with The New York Times:
Q. Why did you choose to keep the birther issue alive?
A. It’s a good issue to keep alive. You know, Donald [Trump] has got to have some fun. It’s fun to poke him a little bit and say “Hey, let’s see your grades and your birth certificate.” I don’t have a clue about where the president – and what this birth certificate says. But it’s also a great distraction. I’m not distracted by it.
So Perry’s thinks it’s fun to “poke” Obama by playing along with the conspiracy-obsessed fools who continue to believe Obama is some kind of sinister foreign implant?
Perry doesn’t have a clue about where Obama was born?
It’s a great distraction? But he’s not distracted by it?
Putting aside his political beliefs, I’m starting to think something’s not quite right with the guy– something that would be frightening in a President of the United States.
