Senator Shelby Backtracks on Obama Citizenship Remarks
February 22nd, 2009Alabama’s senior Republican Senator Richard Shelby is having to backtrack today on comments he made at a town hall meeting Saturday in Cullman, which may have been made in retaliation for recent reports alleging that White House counsel Graig Craig violated Shelby’s attorney-client confidentiality when he talked to North Alabama lawyer Jill Simpson about representing her before her testimony in the Siegleman case before the House Judiciary Committee, as we reported early this morning in this story.
Shelby’s office is calling a Cullman Times report “incomplete” and a “distortion” of his comments on President Obama’s citizenship status during a town hall meeting Saturday.
When asked during the meeting whether there was any truth to the rumor that Obama was not a United States citizen, Shelby said, “Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president.”
According to the Politico, a Washington-based publication, Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo issued the following statement:
“The Cullman Times article contains an incomplete account, and therefore a distortion, of Sen. Shelby’s comments regarding President Obama’s citizenship. At the town hall meeting in Cullman, Sen. Shelby laid out the Constitutional qualifications for the Presidency and said that, while he hasn’t personally seen the President’s birth certificate, he is confident that the matter has been thoroughly examined.”
The Times stands by its reporting as complete and accurate, according to a statement on the newspaper’s Web site. The paper is also seeking video or audio recordings from the meeting to verify the report.
According to FactCheck.Org, the birth certificate of birth from Hawaii is authentic.
Some people area asking: Is this a Trent Lott moment?
Tags: Barack Obama, citizenship dispute, Cullman Times, Senator Richard Shelby
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:41 pm
This just in via Pam’s List:
Remember all that Bush-era haranguing from the reichwing about Democrats, MoveOn and progressive bloggers undermining the President in a time of war? Now that the Presidency is in Democratic hands, Senator Richard Shelby (D-now-R-Alabama) has decided it’s fine to question the
legitimacy of our President to serve — during wartime!
Senator Shelby, you give America’s enemies comfort with statements like this:
“Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.”
This issue was put to rest (for everyone but Alan Keyes) last August when FactCheck.org examined the certificate of true birth and provided additional documentation. Senator Richard Shelby needs to stop giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies, especially while our President leads warfighters on two battlefronts left to him by his predecessor.
It’s one thing to disagree publicly about policy, and the Senator knows that. It’s quite another thing to publicly question whether our President meets the Constitutional qualifications to hold the office he was resoundingly elected to in November.
It needs to stop. Tell Richard Shelby not to undermine our
Commander-in-Chief in wartime. Talk like his is what America’s enemies want to hear. If he is an American patriot, he will stop this senseless questioning. It’s bad for our troops and it’s bad for America
Washington Office:
304 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Telephone: (202) 224-5744
Fax: (202) 224-3416
Email: senator@shelby.senate.gov
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Richard Smith
VetVoice
http://www.vetvoice.com
Rock the Boat
http://www.rocktheboatblog.com
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:12 am
shelby’s problem is that basically he’s not a smart guy. he’s made a lot of mistakes because he’s not a smart guy — leaking secret information he got because of his rank on the intelligence (not the right word to associate with shelby) committee, being involved in campaign contributions connected to appropriations he engineered for projects outside alabama — he’s a small bore thinker surrounded by howitzer brains. so he concentrates on the simple stuff — pork for alabama. when he gets outside that playpen, he screws up.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:02 am
Trent Lott moment? In commission, yes. In consequences, very doubtful. I’m convinced the majority of Alabama voters will elect a bucket of rotting garbage to office as long as the bucket is shiny and the garbage stinks loud enough.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:21 am
A letter to Shelby via E-mail:
I hope you are so ashamed of yourself that you will finally pack your bags and slink out of Washington—you who were sent to Washington and the lush life by Democrats and then allowed yourself to be publicly used by Grinch on the Capitol steps as if he was showing off a prize jackass when you turned your back on the people and party who sent you there. A person of integrity would have served out the term representing the people who elected him. By the way, how did they thank you for your betrayal—did I not hear that you were under a lengthy investigation for allegedly leaking some sort of information?
How low can you stoop? We at last have an intelligent, fine President in Barack Obama, and you can only embarrass yourself and Alabama by once again being used by your party’s line. This country is in deep trouble thanks mainly to malfeasance, and it would behoove you to lend whatever ideas you have to HELP save the country instead of mocking people who are trying to pull us all back from the edge. Perhaps there is only one answer: Ridicule, hate, divisiveness and other negativities are all people of your ilk have to offer. It is time for you to get out of the way, if you are not going to lead or follow.
Embarrassed once again by an Alabamian whose salary we pay, I am.
Evelyn Rivers
Oneonta, Alabama
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:26 am
If the press in Alabama doesn’t get on this story, they may as well mothball the printing presses now!
February 24th, 2009 at 12:12 am
From WRobi via Pam’s List:
Richard Shelby is a disgrace to this nation and Alabama and the people who keep electing him but that doesn’t seem to matter. He embodies all thats wrong with the Congress and the Senate. It’s bad enough that he wants to undermine our new president but don’t let that make us forget his past. He has been for almost everything that has ruined this Country and against everything that might have done us some good. We could blame ideology for him but that means he would have to be considered to have intelligent differing ideas on things. I have watched him for years and never saw anything intelligent about the man. He is an emty suit with a big mouth attached that thinks he knows it all.