‘I Haven’t Seen Any Birth Certificate’
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is getting heat today for his response to a question about President Obama’s citizenship, delivered to a conspiracy-minded citizen
Jul 31, 202014.8K Shares827.3K Views
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is getting heat today for his response to a questionabout President Obama’s citizenship, delivered to a conspiracy-minded citizen at a town hall meeting.
laid out the Constitutional qualifications for the Presidency and said that, while he hasn’t personally seen the President’s birth certificate, he is confident that the matter has been thoroughly examined.” The newspaper is standing by its account of the senator’s answer, which really did give the questioner some rope. After all, Shelby didn’t “personally see” George W. Bush’s birth certificate, either. He is able to see a 2007 Hawai’i documentconfirming that the president was born in Honolulu (not, as conspiracy theorists say, that he was born abroad and given a new Hawai’ian document when he returned home) and two 1961 newspaper announcements of the president’s birth.
Does Shelby deserve the (fairly low-level) heat he’s getting? Well, imagine if a Democrat (or Republican) had answered a 9/11 conspiracy question by saying “I’ve never seen proof of controlled demolitions, but they say the twin towers were brough down by crashing planes.” That would be giving the conspiracy theorists some ground.* Sure enough, some Obama “Birthers” are following up Shelby’s town hall statement by asking him to investigatethe “controversy.”
*In this video, in which he’s hounded by 9/11 conspiracy theorists, Al Franken demonstrates how to blow off the questions and questioners.
Hajra Shannon
Reviewer
Latest Articles
Popular Articles