Jeff Flake (R., Az): Birthers Need To Accept The Reality That Obama Is A Natural Born Citizen

Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake is one of the first Republicans to do more than dance around the birther issue, saying this morning that birthers need to accept reality:

Rep. Jeff Flake said people who don’t believe President Obama was born in the U.S. need to “accept reality.”

Responding to a question Thursday on CNN about a recent poll that found a majority of Republican primary voters don’t believe President Obama was born in the U.S., Flake said he didn’t believe the findings.

“Well, I have a hard time believing that poll,” Flake said. “I think that most people understand and accept the reality. The reality is that, yes, he was born in the United States.”

Flake said the notion that Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen needs to be put to rest.

“Barack Obama is a citizen of the country,” Flake said. “We ought to get off this kick. And there are plenty of differences we have with the president between Republicans and Democrats than to spend time on something like this.”

See, Speaker Boehner, it isn’t very hard at all.

FILED UNDER: Congress, 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. Chad S says:

    There goes his chances at the nomination.

  2. Al says:

    Doesn’t appearing on CNN automatically make you a RINO?

  3. Spiff says:

    Who will speak out on the issue of BO not being muslim?

  4. rickster says:

    Why that unAmerican unpatriotic Jeff Flake. How dare he say such a thing. he needs to be run against & removed from office. The commie marxist lefty. He’s showing his true stripes now.

    We don’t need any of these Olbermann loving nanny state pinkos in office.

    I have it on the best authority that that Kenyan Manchurian Candidate Obummers mother used the time machine George Bush used to go to the future to stop a terrorist attack in the past to plant that birth certificate and those newspaper mentions.

    I bet Flake thinks Sharia is just fine and dandy too.

  5. Herb says:

    Gotta love it: Jeff Flake says, “I have a hard time believing that poll.” Then in the next breath urges people to “understand and accept reality.”

    Note to Flake: A lot of Republicans are birthers. That’s the reality.

    It’s nice that there are some Republicans who aren’t, and indeed some Republicans that will do the whole “push back” thing. But we’re in “too little, too late” territory now. What they need is a Barney Frank type to ask one of these birthers, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

    Who in the Republican party has the courage to do that?

  6. Brummagem Joe says:

    He doesn’t accept the findings of the poll. hilarious.

  7. John Peabody says:

    The poll is dubious. If you ask “do you believe that George Bush likes Yorkshire pudding?” you will get a poll result, but it’s hardly accurate. Likewise, more and more people are turning into burghers because it keeps coming up in the news, and that it’s a lark to say ‘yes’ to the question. Has anyone ever requested Ronald Reagan’s certificate? How about the long form version? Oh, dear, I guess we can’t like him anymore.

  8. Mike Coe says:

    BO is sure spending a ton of money to block everyone from finding out any information about his past. Don’t tell me to get over it Jeff, no wonder you have an immigration problem in Az. You must believe all those unregistered Democrats in AZ ,the same ones from South of the Border, are also natural born citizens. Beside wondering if he is a natural born citizen, I wonder who is his true daddy.

  9. jwest says:

    Flake is correct in questioning the accuracy of the poll, simply because of the way liberals and the media classify “birthers”.

    Just like Flake and Sarah Palin, I accept that Obama is a natural born citizen. However, many on this website would call me a birther because I believe Obama should make his long form birth records available. Let’s just chalk it up to intellectual curiosity, which defines the difference between liberals and conservatives.

    Conservatives always opt for more information rather than less. Liberals, on the other hand, tend to accept what they are told without question. There may well be man-made global warming, but conservatives want full and open scientific research into the subject, while liberals blindly accept the “results” put forth by a handful of people who hide and destroy the supporting data. You would think that liberals who embraced Gore’s discredited “Inconvenient Truth” (complete with Photoshop polar bears on ice flows) would be a little more demanding of facts, but sadly, no.

    Would conservative’s lives be much simpler if they adopted the liberal’s position of just accepting what they’re told without question? Naturally. However, it’s just that stubborn refusal to be led like sheep that makes conservatives who they are.

  10. Alex Knapp says:

    BO is sure spending a ton of money to block everyone from finding out any information about his past.

    (citation needed)

  11. mantis says:

    However, many on this website would call me a birther because I believe Obama should make his long form birth records available.

    Your complaints were thoroughly addressed in this thread. I predicted you would ignore them and continue spewing the same crap elsewhere, pretending that you never read them. Prediction: correct.

    So, jwest, why don’t you go back to that thread and respond to the fine work of jukeboxgrad and others, who ably pointed out your repeated and insistent stupidity? Can you? Or will you just keep repeating the same debunked crap, over and over again? Oh wait, you’re a birther. I already know the answer.

  12. Davebo says:

    Let’s just chalk it up to intellectual curiosity, which defines the difference between liberals and conservatives.

    Who do I call to be reimbursed for my lost coffee over this hilarity?

    Or were you really saying that conservatives are curious as to whether or not they have an intellect?

  13. Bleev K says:

    “Let’s just chalk it up to intellectual curiosity, which defines the difference between liberals and conservatives.”

    If you’re right, you’re obiouvsly a liberal.

  14. jwest says:

    Mantis,

    In the past, I’ve credited you with having at least a modicum of common sense. Your comment brings that assumption into question.

    Try to put aside your drooling admiration for the incredibly unaccomplished Barack Obama for a moment and think about what you are saying. It boils down to your belief that if the President of the United States asked that the State of Hawaii produce his long form birth certificate, they would refuse. All based on the theory that if they did it for him, everyone would want theirs.

    Does that make sense to you?

    Let’s bring in the OTB braintrust and have Doug, James and Steven agree or disagree solely on the point of would Hawaii comply with the request.

  15. Alex Knapp says:

    @jwest –

    In order to release a vital record, there has to be a law or regulation allowing for the release of that record. Hawaii’s laws and regulations are directed only to the release of certified copies of birth records (which is what Obama released to the public.) There is no provision in Hawaii law that allows for the release of the originals. So even if Obama requested his records, there’s no law that allows for Hawaii to release them. Accordingly, if any Hawaiian state official were to release the records, they would be breaking the state’s general privacy laws.

  16. jwest says:

    And people wonder, if liberals are so intelligent, why are the conservative so rich?

    Alex, people like Mantis and Jukeboxgrad have an affliction that plagues most liberals – they are terminally naïve. Just as kids in the Special Olympics believe they are running and jumping at world class levels, these guys think they are intellectuals.

    By taking a phrase out of a Hawaiian state reference guide, namely:

    “Although original birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth) are preferred for their greater detail, the State Department of Health (DOH) no longer issues Certificates of Live Birth.”

    They concocted a fantasy scenario where legislators actually debated and passed a law that forbids the issuance of copies of original birth certificates under any circumstances. This imaginary piece of legalese gives them a thread to cling to in their non-existent arguments of why the document isn’t being released. No amount of logic or common sense will dissuade them from their belief that if the long form was requested, it would certainly be produced. What will their response be?

    “But….but…..there is a law! I heard about some law somewhere!”

    What they will be searching for is what the Hawaiian Attorney General spoke about in this quote:

    “State Attorney General David Louie told the governor that privacy laws bar him from disclosing an individual’s birth documentation without the person’s consent….”

    Of course they will ignore the “without the person’s consent” portion of that sentence and continue thinking that the world would come to an end if a copy was released, even with Obama’s say so.

  17. Alex Knapp says:

    @jwest,

    As far as I can tell based on a Google search from your quote, the documentation that the Attorney General referenced was the COLB that Barack Obama released to the public. Again, as far as I have researched, there is no provision in Hawaii law that allows for the release of the original document, period. So again, even if Obama went on the 6 o’clock news and DEMANDED that Hawaii release his records, Hawaii would still have to pass a law allowing for the release of such records before any state official could do any such thing.

    At any rate, I confess to failing to see the relevance of this particular line of argumentation. Obama released the legal document required to establish his citizenship. As far as the law is concerned, this is the end of the story.

  18. mantis says:

    It boils down to your belief that if the President of the United States asked that the State of Hawaii produce his long form birth certificate, they would refuse.

    Why should they break with their normal procedures, which are good enough for the US State Department and every other state in the union, just to appease the demands of crazy people?

    All based on the theory that if they did it for him, everyone would want theirs.

    That’s not the theory. The theory is that government should not be beholden to the whims of lunatics.

    They concocted a fantasy scenario where legislators actually debated and passed a law that forbids the issuance of copies of original birth certificates under any circumstances.

    We concocted no such scenario. There are, in fact, privacy laws which prohibit the state from releasing records, and they are bound by them. Those laws allow for the release of the official birth document (COLB) with the consent of the person in question. That COLB is at the top of this page. That you refuse to recognize that states have privacy laws regarding vital records, which they follow, is not the product of others fantasies, but rather your own insistence that government disregard the law in order to submit to the demands of birthers.

    “State Attorney General David Louie told the governor that privacy laws bar him from disclosing an individual’s birth documentation without the person’s consent….”

    Of course they will ignore the “without the person’s consent” portion of that sentence and continue thinking that the world would come to an end if a copy was released, even with Obama’s say so.

    The document has already been released. It’s at the top of this page. You want the president to consent to release of a document he has already release, years ago. You’re a moron.

    A moron, I might add, who does not address the debunking of all of his idiotic arguments presented in the other thread, which you ran away from.

  19. jwest says:

    Mantis,

    You continue to say ridiculous things such as “the document has already been released” when even someone as limited as you knows the subject is the long form birth certificate.

    Then you complain when I refuse to play “Who’s on First” with you.

    I haven’t seen this much conflation and obfuscation since the Clinton years.

  20. mantis says:

    You continue to say ridiculous things such as “the document has already been released” when even someone as limited as you knows the subject is the long form birth certificate.

    No, the subject is the legal documentation which the State of Hawaii provides under the law. That has been released. It has been repeatedly, exhaustively explained to you that the State of Hawaii does not use old paper records anymore since they digitized them over a decade ago and does not issue long forms since they started issuing COLBs decades ago. You refuse to recognize that because you’re a crazy ass birther.

    Then you complain when I refuse to play “Who’s on First” with you.

    Actually, I just point out that you run away when your arguments are debunked, only to repeat them the next day.

  21. Wiley Stoner says:

    Flake is wrong. Obama is, at best, a natural citizen. His father was the subject of the British Crown. His mother was a minor at the time of his birth. British law conferred British citizenship on Obama due to the citizenship of his father. It really makes no difference where Obama was born. The fact is he was born with duel citizenship. That precludes the requirement to be “Natural Born”. A natural born citizen is someone with both parents are American citizens. I believe the original birth certificate would indicate Obama is born subject to British authority. Without the real birth certificate, not the certiifcation of live birth, there is no way to know. That is why the massive attempt to hide this information.

  22. An Interested Party says:

    I’m just curious…if the president is guilty of the parade of crimes listed in this thread, and if he really is an illegitimate president, what are you crusaders for truth going to do about it? Apart from whining anonymously on random political blogs, that is…

  23. James says:

    You know that birthers are grasping at straws when they start to quote obscure British laws then claim it applies to American citizens. They then compound their ridiculous clams with a lie that can be debunked with a simple Google search ie: Obama’s mother was 18 when she give birth to Barak. Meaning she’s not a minor. But her age and the citizenship of Obama’s father is irreverent because according to the U.S. Constitution, it’s a pretty important document, with a few specific expectations, anyone born in the U.S. is automatically an American. No matter what obscure British laws people quote.

    And WIley his birth certificate is available for your on-line viewing here http://msgboard.snopes.com/politics/graphics/birth.jpg

    It’s the legal document that Hawaii issues. Just because you and other idiots, I’m mean birthers, don’t think it’s legit doesn’t matter in reality, you need to accept that fact and move on and go find a unicorn or something.

  24. Montana says:

    To all the “Chicken Littles” or should I say “Chicken Hawks” that keep saying that the sky is falling, and the Unites States will fail, never bet against the United States of America, we are coming back and you and the rest of you phonies are wrong!

    The Birthers just HATE and can’t debate, where is there proof you might asked? Up where the sun don’t shine, HA, HA, show some proof birthers or people will continue to see you as dumb, stupid or racist, maybe all three. Can you blame them?