Our political Quote of the Day comes from Dick Polman who has a question about birther’s consistency. He first sites polls that indicate bitherism is no longer a fringe element but a mainstream belief in today’s Republican Party. He then writes:
But I’m wondering: How come Republicans aren’t upset about Mitt Romney? He’s been running for president on and off since 2006, but has yet to produce any form of birth certificate.
Seriously, he hasn’t. The Boston Globe asked the Romney campaign about this years ago. An aide emailed back, “He was born in Detroit. City Hall should have it.” But The Globe had no luck at City Hall – because birth records are kept private in Michigan, and only a family member or legal guardian or legal representative is empowered to obtain a copy.
Romney has never released even a copy. What’s he trying to hide? And isn’t Canada, a foreign country, only a few miles away? How do we know he wasn’t born in Canada? And didn’t Romney, as a young adult, spend a suspiciously large amount of time in…gasp…France?
One might think that the largely conservative denizens of battyland, given their vigilance on this birther issue, would be hammering Romney about this. Yet they are not. And we know why not:
1. Romney is a Republican.
2. Romney has a red-blooded American name.
3. Romney is white.
Indeed. I’m now watching via Netflix Ken Burn’s MUST VIEW “The Civil War.” And what a total contrast between the Republican Party then — and even the Republican Party of 10 years ago. Or 4 years ago.
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.