Thread: Perry on Obama's birthplace: Just kidding

Oct 26, 2011

Perry on Obama's birthplace: Just kidding

By David Jackson, USA TODAY Updated 13m ago

This just in: Rick Perry says he thinks President Obama is an American citizen.

Perry told a pair of Florida interviewers today that he has no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii and that he was only kidding around when he raised the so-called birther issue this week.

The St. Petersburg Times reports that Perry declined to address the citizenship issue in detail, but "he made clear that he no longer thinks it's a good issue to keep alive. He declared that he has no doubt Obama is an American citizen."

Instead, Perry focused on his just-announced economic plan and Republican opponents Herman Cain and Mitt Romney.

One of Perry's interviewers, Adam Smith of the St. Petersburg Times, reports:

Texas governor Rick Perry clarified Wednesday that he has no doubt that Barack Obama was born in the U.S., saying that he was only kidding around when he voiced doubts in a TV interview earlier this week.

Perry made the comments in an exclusive Political Connections interview to air Sunday on Bay News 9. He was at the Tradewinds Island Grand resort in St. Pete Beach for a $1,000-per person breakfast fundraiser that drew about 50 people.

In the interview he touted his new tax proposal for an optional 20 percent tax plan, saying it was superior to businessman Herman Cain's flat tax proposal because it does not include a national sales tax.

Perry, 61, is trying to revive a campaign that has plummeted in the polls after shaky debate performances and attacks on his anti-illegal immigration record in Texas. In the interview, he acknowledged his weak debate performances saying America already has a great debater in Barack Obama and that what's more important is his Texas record leading the nation in job creation.

He described Romney as a serial flip-flopper whose positions on basic questions from gun control to abortion to gay rights shift, depending on the office he's seeking.

In a CNBC interview earlier this week, he managed to distract from his new tax proposal by saying, "I don't have any idea," when asked if he believes the Hawaiian birth certificate released by the president is authentic. "It's a good issue to keep alive," he said then.

He declined to address that issue Tuesday, but in today's interview with Al Ruechel and me he made clear that he no longer thinks it's a good issue to keep alive. He declared that he has no doubt Obama is an American citizen.

On other issues:

-- Perry said he would leave it up to states like Florida to decide whether to allow offshore drilling near their shores.

-- He said he opposes a proposal in Texas to create a license plate featuring the Confederate flag: "We don't need to be scraping old wounds."

-- The governor who once shot and killed an aggressive coyote on a morning job with his laser-sighted Ruger, declined to say whether he was packing heat in Florida. "That's why they call it a concealed weapon."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... ver-mind/1

Bag man Carl Rover told him to shut up about it.