Advertisement

Opinion: Sending Arizona ‘birthers’ back to the drawing board

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Mea culpa, Jan Brewer. You showed (or should I say, pwned) me.

A bill requiring presidential hopefuls to hand over their long-form (e.g. not Hawaiian) birth certificates to Arizona’s secretary of state landed on her desk last week. Given Gov. Brewer’s unparalleled record of empowering Arizona’s political fringe, I predicted she would let the bill become law and establish her state as the nation’s official ‘birther’ gatekeeper to the presidency. A Hawaiian, whose state provides only the dreaded ‘short form’ to those seeking a birth certificate, would have to dig up enough hospital, baptismal or circumcision paperwork to convince Arizona of his sufficient American-ness.

Advertisement

The bill was a joke, and Brewer dismissed it as such by noting in her short veto message that she ‘never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth to submit their ‘early baptismal or circumcision certificate.’ ‘ For good measure she could have thrown in a line explaining she has no doubts concerning President Obama’s citizenship (clearly what this bill was about), but Brewer has nonetheless handed the un-dead birther movement its most official rebuke yet.

Good for her. Now what about gays, Latinos and immigrants?

RELATED:

Birthers: Arizona hopes to slice down the presidential field

Arizona gives ‘birthers’ a dim flicker of hope

Arizona’s fill-in governor does it again

Advertisement

-- Paul Thornton

Advertisement