As Tennesseans who have followed our state lawmakers know by now, the shenanigans of our legislators occasionally make them appear either excessively partisan or flatly ignorant- if not maliciously deceitful – regarding the issues they pretend to address. State Sen. Bill Ketron and Rep. Rick Womick, both Murfreesboro Republicans, have just demonstrated that anew by filing a bill that would draw the Legislature into the fantasy land of the so-called “birthers” – the group of conspiracy theorists who are again raising the notion that President Obama is not an American citizen qualified to hold the presidency.
Their bill, similar to one introduced in the Arizona Legislature by Republican state Rep. Judy Burges in early February, would require U.S. presidential candidates to prove they were born in the United States to qualify for the presidential ballot in Tennessee. It is aimed directly at Obama’s re-election plans despite the fact that under the United States Constitution, he is a natural-born American citizen by virtue of his birth to an American mother in Hawaii two years after it became the 50th state of the union.
Regardless, Ketron, apparently infused with the birthers’ anti-Obama conspiracy fantasy, told the Associated Press that he thinks Obama is hiding the so-called fact that he was born in another country.
Republican leaders have generally coddled this group on the grounds that any foe of Obama is a potential voter and friend of theirs. Most national Republican leaders, including Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, have refused to refute the birthers’ claim when they have been asked about it. Instead, they coyly say that, well, Americans have the right to make up their own mind about Obama’s citizenship and that they’re not going to tell these people what to believe – at least not on that issue.
Never mind that Hawaii’s Health Department confirmed early in 2008 that Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, in a Honolulu hospital; or that the Obama team scanned and made available a copy of his birth certificate. The conspiracy theorists continue to ignore the proof. They just claim the facsimile of the certificate is a fake and keep up their anti-Obama chant. For many, it fits with their broader conspiracy theory that Obama’s not a Christian either, as he proclaims, but is secretly a Muslim who is engaged in a bigger conspiracy to undermine America and impose Sharia law. Their tripe is as endless as it is unfounded.