Georgia Republicans Nominate Birther For Governor

The down-to-the wire Georgia Republican Gubernatorial Primary ended late this morning when Karen Handel conceded the race to former Congressman Nathan Deal. You probably haven’t heard much about Deal, but you’ll soon be hearing this:

U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, now a Republican candidate for governor, this morning declared himself in sympathy with those questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A.

The occasion was an online chat the congressman had with supporters this morning. And the question came from Tom Crawford of Capitol Impact.

Do you believe that Barack Obama is a native-born American citizen who is eligible to serve as president? I am asking because your comments on this issue have been a little ambiguous. I would appreciate your clearing this up.

At 9:17 a.m., Deal tapped out this:

I am joining several of my colleagues in the House in writing a letter to the President asking that he release a copy of his birth certificate so we can have an answer to this question.

This is a new position for Deal. Back in August, my AJC colleague Aaron Gould Sheinin asked much the same question. This was the response he received from Deal campaign spokesman Harris Blackwood:

“He began receiving letters and e-mails about this long before the president took office. He has maintained in response to each one that he believes the president was born in the state of Hawaii two years after it became a state, is an American citizen and therefore is fully qualified to be president of the United States.”

And, oh yea, that’s not all. Deal left Congress under an ethical cloud and may be the subject of an ongoing Federal Grand Jury investigation.

Something tells me Georgia Democrats are pretty pleased right now.

FILED UNDER: 2010 Election, US Politics, , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. D says:

    Deal is a joke.

  2. Zelsdorf Ragshaft III says:

    Doug, the term is “Natural Born Citizen”, not native born.  They are not interchangable.  The Consititution does not say native born.  As to where Obama was born.  What proof do you have he was born in America?  Are you taking the word of politicians?  That would make a person be labels as gullible.  I would much rather be known as a birther than gullible.  Doug, you take a page right out of Alinsky’s book when you lable someone who opposes what you believe with a demeaning name.  But then you did skip ethics, right? 

    I don’t know, nor do I care where Obama was born, but I do care his father was not an american citizen.  If you believe he was born here please explain why we cannot see his birth certificate (not certification of live birth), his school records, passport information, college transripts, etc, etc?  If someone in Georgia is honest enough to doubt things not evident about Obama, that should be a plus rather than a detriment.  However left wing shills such as yourself, Doug, cannot help playing in mud.

  3. mantis says:

    Doug, the term is “Natural Born Citizen”, not native born.  They are not interchangable. “

    Yes, they are.  There are two types of citizen, natural (or natural-born, or native-born, etc.) and naturalized.  You are either born a citizen, or you become one through naturalization.  There are not two types of natural citizen, no matter what half-wit birthers claim.

    What proof do you have he was born in America?


    Hilarious.  What proof do we have he was born at all?  Hmmm?

    I don’t know, nor do I care where Obama was born, but I do care his father was not an american citizen.


    Why?  We’ve had presidents whose parents were not citizens.

    If you believe he was born here please explain why we cannot see his birth certificate (not certification of live birth),


    Certification of live birth is a birth certificate, you deranged birther.

    his school records, passport information, college transripts, etc, etc?


    Have you seen those for all previous presidents?  Why not demand those?
     

  4. John P says:

    Doug,
    I can’t believe you would take the word of a politician like Obama on this sensitive subject when we know for a fact that Deal doubts.
    Or for that matter that you would fall for that non-baby-footed birth certificate the hospital in Hawaii is trying to pass off.
    Fact: the word “undeniable” appears in the Constitution 12 times and the word gullible appears in the Constitution zero time! That’s because Tomas Jefferson was the opposite of gullible, which in your head probably makes him a Birther too!
    Now, don’t get me wrong – I couldn’t care less about Obama’s origins with the exception of where he was born, what his college transcripts look like, and what kind of attendance record he had at the madras in Indonesia. Therefore and also thusly you must explain the difference between sausages and snausages.

  5. There’s also the incident by Deal where he made a comment about “ghetto grandmothers”.

  6. sam says:

    “Doug, the term is “Natural Born Citizen”, not native born. They are not interchangable. The Consititution does not say native born”
    Ah, stuff it Zelsdorf. I showed that stupid argument leads to conclusions only a moron or and an insane person would accept. In your case, of course, those are not mutually exclusive.

  7. MarkedMan says:

    You know, I was telling my wife about the last Birther column and the high number of replies it got and I mentioned in passing that if I were Obama I would absolutely not try to get Hawaii to make a special exception and dig the original paper birth certificate out of storage.  Because he’s been to that well three times (official Hawaiian COLB, Newspaper announcements of his birth, having the Republican governor of Hawaii vouch for the legitimacy of birth certificate) and the lunatic fringe just immediately asks for more.  But as I was describing their whole fascination with the footy birth certificate I thought of another, much more powerful reason not to release it.  I have to admit I assumed it wouldn’t have the little baby feet the birthers believe is on every “real” birth certificate (for the record, it’s not on mine from Illinois, my wife’s from New York or my children’s from Maryland.  I think my mother has something with my feet on it from the hospital but it’s not a birth certificate, it’s a CYA in case there was a baby mixup in the nursery.)  But what if Hawaiian paper birth certificates of that era actually had the little baby footies on there? Or if not all of them, at least the ones from the hospital Obama was born in? Well, then the Birthers would demand that the President submit to having his foot printed and compared.  When it matched, they would insist he have it done in public, as he might have faked it.  When that matched they would bring in blogosphere “experts” to pass judgement on whether he had his feet surgically altered.  “Why won’t he hold his naked feet up for our experts to see if he has nothing to hide?  Huh?  Huh!!?”
    This is never going to end.  The lunatics will never believe any evidence.  He is absolutely right to ignore them at this point.  And the Dems are smart to make hay every time some Republican Rep panders to the base by expressing “concern” that the facts haven’t been adequately explained.