Earlier, Charlie posted the video for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s birther comments. I was floored this morning when I saw this on Twitter during my bus commute. A few morning meetings later and I’m even more shocked to see that it’s true, he actually said it.
Watch this video:
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Here is a transcript from his sit-down, posted by the New York Times, which, despite the arguments some have made, does not appear to omit anything genuinely exculpatory:
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.
As an update to this post, here is the ridiculous exchange with Parade magazine that got this all started:
I have no reason to think otherwise.
That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—
Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.
But you’ve seen his.
I don’t know. Have I?
You don’t believe what’s been released?
I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.
And?
That came up.
And he said?
He doesn’t think it’s real.
And you said?
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.
I don’t think Perry is a birther, I just think he believes that he helps himself by pandering to birthers. (Who knows, maybe he’s holding out for the Trump endorsement.)
At best, Perry’s comments convey the impression that birtherism is some kind of harmless joke. He cannot possibly believe that — he has previously gotten mileage with similar, meaningless gestures to his Right, toying “in jest” with secession and nullification and a variety of other silly ideas designed to go nowhere and make a lot of noise in the right quarters around election time. He knows what he’s doing, but only so well.
And he’s really stepped on the wrong landmine this time.
There are millions of idiots out there who have been propagating birtherism for years. (Some of them still are, all evidence be damned.) They styled themselves as amateur experts in Hawaiian vital records, when in fact they knew and continue to know nothing.
There are millions more who are less malicious but simply don’t have time to pay close attention to this stuff. But thanks to the first group, they’ve heard something or read a headline somewhere and they genuinely believe that there’s some kind of issue with Obama’s birthplace.
When I originally promoted The Case Against Barack Obama in 2008, I was advised never to be afraid about calling crazy “crazy” to its face. I have to say, when you’re on a call-in radio show talking about Obama, and a caller starts spouting nonsense about how Obama is a Musllim from Kenya, it’s quite tempting to pander to the crowd. But if you do, you lose all of your credibility. So I promised from the start never to beat around the bush with birthers.
I was just selling a book. Rick Perry is running to lead the free world. For someone in his position to keep this alive is simply disgraceful. I think it is even more serious than President Obama’s pandering to the Occupy protestors. I’m sure there will be some parsing of Perry’s words, but I don’t see at the moment how this isn’t disqualifying for the presidency.
