President Obama’s spokesman invoked the Birthers during his defense of Obama regarding the president’s failure to improve the political discourse in the capitol, noting that Birtherism, among other things, distracted from substantive policy issues.
“I can remember back in my early days as press secretary spending an awful lot of time answering questions about the president’s birth certificate,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney recalled today, “which seemed like a gratuitously stupid sideshow at a time when we had enormously important things to do.”
“The tone of our politics has gotten unnecessarily partisan,” Carney said.
Just three percent of Americans in a recent poll said they believe that Obama was not born in the United States, but the topic often receives undue attention from liberal pundits critical of conservatives and the Tea Party. The Birthers often work to make headlines. For instance, four New Hampshire state legislators attempted to have Obama kicked off the New Hampshire primary ballot on the grounds that he is not eligible to be president.
