SALON

Friday, Dec 4, 2009 3:58 AM UTC

Palin: Birthers have “fair question” about Obama

Of Obama birth, the ex-governor says, "the public is still, rightfully, making it an issue" (Updated)

By

Topics: Sarah Palin, War Room, Birthers,

Palin: Birthers have Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin signs a copy of "Going Rogue" during a book signing event at a Sam's Club on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009, in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Beth Hall)(Credit: AP)

During her year in the spotlight, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has jumped on her fair share of conspiracy bandwagons. She’s even kick-started one or two, like the infamous “death panels.” But, at least, she’d never joined up with the Birthers, the people who believe President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. and is thus not eligible under the Constitution to hold his office.

Until now, that is.

Palin did an interview with conservative radio talker Rusty Humphries on Thursday. During their conversation, Humphries brought up a question apparently submitted by one of his readers: “Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?”

The meaning of “the birth certificate” was clear. Humphries was asking about Obama’s birth certificate, and the various myths about it: That he hasn’t released a copy, that the copy he did release is a forgery and on and on. (If you missed it a few months back, my full debunking of the Birthers’ theories is here.)

This is the exchange that ensued:

HUMPHRIES: Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?

PALIN: Um, I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think enough members of the electorate still want answers.

HUMPHRIES: Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?

PALIN: I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past associations, past voting records, all of that is fair game. You know, I gotta tell you, too, I think our campaign, the McCain-Palin campaign, didn’t do a good enough job in that area. We didn’t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were, and perhaps what their future plans were, and I don’t think that was fair to voters, to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of things that now we’re seeing made manifest in the administration.

HUMPHRIES: I mean, truly, if your past is fair game and your kids are fair game, certainly Obama’s past should be. I mean, we want to treat men and women equally, right?

PALIN: Hey, you know, that’s a great point. That weird conspiracy theory freaky thing that people talk about, that Trig isn’t my real son, a lot of people say, “Well, you need to produce his birth certificate, you need to prove that he’s your kid,” which we have done, but yeah, so maybe we should reverse that and use the same type of thinking on the other one.

(Video of the interview is at the bottom of this post, with a hat-tip to HotAir’s Allahpundit on Twitter; the relevant portion begins at roughly 7:45.)

Palin is, of course, wrong to say that the public is still “rightfully” bringing up the issue — it’s been answered again and again at this point, and there’s no doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii. But she is right about a couple of things: For one, whoever the Republican nominee is in 2012, they won’t “have to bother to make it an issue.” It already will be, if not one discussed explicitly by the campaign and its surrogates, because so many Republicans already have doubts about the president’s birthplace. The fact that Palin and other mainstream figures, like Lou Dobbs and Tom DeLay, have indulged the Birthers doesn’t help matters.

Palin’s also right to draw a parallel between the conspiracy theories that surround Obama’s birth and the one about her son. The two are equally nutty. You’d hope, however, that going through that experience would teach her that it’s an awful thing to happen to anyone, regardless of political party. Instead, her attitude seems to be that the two wrongs somehow make a right.

Update: Palin’s now taken to Facebook — where else? — to do a walkback of sorts of her comments. In a post titled “Stupid Conspiracies,” she writes:

Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask … which they have repeatedly. But at no point — not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews — have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.

Of course, Palin’s original remarks went further than this. And “conspiracy-minded reporters and voters” have asked about Obama’s birth certificate too. The questions have been answered. As Hot Air’s Ed Morrisey observed after Palin posted this, “It’s the same thing as Truthers saying that all they’re doing is ‘asking questions.’ The answers have already been provided; they just reject them because they’re married to their conspiracies.

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon. More Alex Koppelman.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 332 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3074 points3075 points | 2350 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
1022 points1023 points | 546 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
150 points151 points | 60 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
32 points33 points | 15 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
26 points27 points | 11 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations