Gibbs Slams the Birthers: Obama’s a Citizen
July 27, 2009, 3:55 pm
By Helene Cooper
thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
The White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, better known for his mastery of the artful dodge of questions he does not want to answer, got unusually animated and direct on Monday when, during the regular news briefing, a reporter asked him, “Is there anything you can say that will make the birthers go away?”
You know the birthers — a fringe element that insists President Obama’s Hawaii birth certificate is not enough to convince them that he was born in the United States. They have been getting a lot of time recently on the Internet, where conspiracy theories live and flourish. And the CNN anchor Lou Dobbs earlier this month was the target of heated criticism for appearing to give credence to a rumor that has been widely discredited.
“I almost hate to indulge in such an august setting as the White House — and I mean this in seriousness — the White House briefing room, discussing the made-up fictional nonsense of whether the president was born in this country,” Mr. Gibbs said. “If I had some DNA, it wouldn’t assuage those that don’t believe he was born here. But I have news for them and for all of us: The president was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the 50th state of the greatest country on the face of the earth. He’s a citizen.”
The longtime correspondent Helen Thomas asked Mr. Gibbs why he thought the issue kept coming up, lobbing Mr. Gibbs a nice fat ball.
“Because,” he said, “for $15, you can get an Internet address and say whatever you want.” |
