Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin once called the birthers’ clamor for President Barack Obama a “distraction.” No more:
“I appreciate that the Donald wants to spend his resources on something that so interests him and so many Americans, you know more power to him,” Palin said Sunday on the “Judge Jeanine” show on Fox News.
The former Alaska governor’s remarks on Sunday seems to signal a shift in her opinions on the “birther” issue. Long ago, the president did release a “certificate of live birth” which many non-partisan watchdog groups say definitively proves he was born in the U.S.
In other words, it most assuredly seems to be one of THESE.
Meanwhile, Hawaii officials continue to scratch their heads over this seeming belief that if you repeat a charge and raise a doubt over and over and over it’ll work (and it apparently does).
“It’s kind of ludicrous at this point,” Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the former director of Hawaii’s Department of Health, said in an interview with NBC.
Fukino reviewed Obama’s birth certificate twice and said that “birthers” and other doubters will never be satisfied.
“It is real, and no amount of saying it is not, is going to change that,” Fukino said.
In February, Palin said the “birther” issue was a “distraction” from the important issues.
“It’s distracting. It gets annoying. Let’s stick with what really matters,” Palin said at an appearance at the Long Island Association.
Although she said she believes Obama was born in Hawaii, Palin seems to be reverting to her old position that it is fair game to ask the president for his birth certificate.
“Obviously there is something there that the president doesn’t want people to see on that birth certificate, that he sees going to great lengths to make sure it isn’t shown. And that’s perplexing for a lot of people,” Palin told Judge Jeanine on Sunday.
It’s a classic case of wanting to have it both ways. But, in the case of Palin, hopefully she only wants to have it so she is a high paid commentator and political celebrity, which she is. She continues to show no signs of wanting to beyond her existing constituency. Her statement that the birther issue was a distraction had been a plus, in the eyes of some. Her new latest statememt is one more minus in a potential candidacy that looks like a big minus.
And increasingly so, according to polls, in the eyes of many Republicans as well.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.