At Saturday morning breakfast for the Cherokee County GOP, Georgia Congressman and republican gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal was explaining his insistence in a legislative provision demanding proof of citizenship for federal or state health care benefits. opposition campaign video cameras rolling when he said:
We got all the complaints of the ghetto grandmothers who didn’t have birth certificates and all that. We wrote some very liberal language as to how you can verify it. My mother was born in 1906 and she didn’t have a birth certificate. They didn’t give birth certificates back then. But we got her one, because you can do it under the proper procedures of your state.
It was widely reported Monday that he regretted the gaffe. Today we learn in a Deal campaign fund-raising e-mail that they apparently believe his comment was taken out of context:
Once again, the liberal Atlanta media has unleashed its venom on the Deal campaign and we’re fighting back
When Nathan was explaining his fight in Washington against health care benefits, one of our Republican opponents made an out-of-context video clip and placed it in the hands of the Atlanta media.
It is a classic example of desperation politics.
Nathan Deal: “It’s time for my opponents to put down their video cameras and stop taking my words out of context and join me in standing up for the taxpayers of Georgia. Providing health care for those who have violated our laws and are in this country illegally is costing hardworking taxpayers billions of dollars.”
Jim Galloway called the Deal campaign and asked under what circumstances “ghetto grandmothers” could be considered proper and in the correct context.
You guessed it: NO COMMENT.