Roy Blunt: Obama Birth Certificate A "Legitimate Question" (VIDEO)

UPDATE: Roy Blunt has confirmed that he does believe Obama is a U.S. citizen. "Of course he does," Rich Chrismer, the spokesman for Blunt's Senate camapign, said.

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UPDATE: Roy Blunt's office is not responding to questions about the congressman's birth certificate comments.

Asked by The Plum Line about the strange interaction, Blunt's spokesman said the video was selectively edited.

"We encourage this blog to release the video of the entire interview instead of the edited version," Chismer told me.

When I asked Chismer directly whether Blunt believes Obama is legitimately the president, Chismer didn't directly answer, instead repeating: "We're encouraging the blog to release the entire interview."

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As leaders in the party try to distance themselves from "birthers," more Republican lawmakers are joining the party's fringe in questioning President Obama's legitimacy.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) has joined onto a bill requiring all future presidential candidates to make their birth certificates available. And Mike Stark of FireDogLake, who has been chasing down Republicans on Capitol Hill and asking them about the issue, got Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a likely Senate candidate in 2010, to make some pretty bold comments.

"What I don't know is why the president can't produce a birth certificate," Blunt said. "I don't know anybody else that can't produce one. And I think that that's a legitimate question -- no health records, no birth certificate."

Watch:

Of course, Obama has produced his birth certificate. Reporters have seen and touched the document itself and confirmed its veracity. State officials in Hawaii checked as recently as this week and concluded once again that the president's birth certificate is real. When Stark pointed out that Chris Matthews had held a copy of the document up on MSNBC, Blunt responded, "Take it up with Chris Matthews."

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Comments

[Bitsko]

09:58 PM on 08/05/2009

Dang, I thought this was going to be about Roy Blount, Jr., the great essayist and sportswriter, not some know-nothing political hack.

[brianguy]

02:20 PM on 08/03/2009

"Obama has produced his birth certificate. Reporters have ... touched the document itself and confirmed its veracity. "

article almost made it without slipping up. however, it's not 'the document', it's a reproduction. a 'Certification of Live Birth', meaning a substitute for a real, original birth certificate. this is a neo-testament to a verbal or written confirmation of a birth.

Lou Dobbs etc. say they believe he was born in Hawaii. all well and good, but believing in something and knowing it are two entirely different things. are the American people not entitled to know? why not? would our founding fathers have wanted it that way? read their writings - I'm certain they didn't.

I have the same stake as all other Americans as to Obama's birth status as a natural born citizen & how it affects the election procedures surrounding all future Presidents. I haven't demanded he produce one, won't write a letter to elected officials, the press, or Obama himself asking for it. I simply don't understand why the WhiteHouse and the Hawaiian officials keep pretending it's not worthwhile & nobody has the right to know. why the smoke & mirrors surrounding this President's rise to power, different from the prior forty-three? no birth records, college records, health records; what else aren't we privy to? 'no taxation without representation' ring any bells? how do we know who is in the ExecutiveBranch when all of these questions fall on deaf ears, unanswered? transparency is a cute campaign slogan, &

[brianguy]

02:39 PM on 08/03/2009

see also:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105367

and

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obama-birth29-2009jul29,0,2278950.story?track=rss (Gibbs makes yet another false argument, we don't care about seeing DNA)

[AFAN]

01:21 PM on 07/31/2009

I sent a message to Roy Blunt because he belongs in my district:

Dear Mr.Blunt

I was deeply offended and upset that you were shown on youtube suggesting that our President was not born in the U.S. despite health officials in Hawaiian Stating that he was born in that state on Aug.4 1961. You have seen the ads posted on this birth and you have seen his birth certification on line that was confirmed by factcheck.org. I'm not going to stoop down to the level that you are a racist by suggesting that President Obama is currently an illegitimate President. But as you begin your campaign run for U.S. Senate in 2010 you are dangerously treading toward racial politics and polarizing the residents in which could very well lose most of your African-American supporters especially hear in Springfield Missouri by using some great African leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & Fredrick Douglas as a shield for your gutter agenda.
If you want to represent the state of Missouri with dignity when you run for the Senate, you need to distance yourself from these false propaganda come from these birthers. If you choose not to distance yourself from these birthers I will contact the local NAACP President Francine M. Pratt in Springfield MO. and recommend that you should be barred from the local chapter of NAACP Mr. Blunt. Feel free to respond this comment if you have any question.

[trisha08]

01:11 PM on 07/31/2009

And the Right has the nerve to say that Liberals were too tough on Palin and forced her out of office. Unbelievable.

I haven't seen parades of liberal teabaggers holding hateful signs that Palin is a commu_nist, Marx_ist, referring to her as a Na_zi, not an American citizen,etc---like members of the GOP have been doing with President Obama.

Besides, was just a governor of a small state (population) not the President of the United States.

They have some nerve to claim that the Left is mean spirited and tough on Palin. Give me a break.

[jeff90125]

01:58 PM on 07/31/2009

Palin is not any of those things you mentioned. Obama is. Well, I wouldn't say he is a Na_zi. He is an American citizen too.

[Bronxdude]

12:34 PM on 07/31/2009

Another White man afraid of change...to bad you may have to sell your white sheet.

[barackobama4prez]

10:41 AM on 07/31/2009

If even a Black man can win the presidency, it's time to change the whole friggin process! Too easy for coloreds to get in!

[concentric1]

09:31 AM on 07/31/2009

The ultimate downfall of this nation will be legislators who waste valuable time entertaining this crap and stunning ignorance of some of the American people who engage in racism and divisiveness. Country First...what a fricking joke!

[take10]

11:04 AM on 07/31/2009

Ditto!

[squat6971]

09:29 AM on 07/31/2009

Once again, it's all about the earth-shattering reality that there's a black man in the White House.

[FilthyHarry]

07:47 AM on 07/31/2009

Just a reminder folks, Birthers don't necessarily say Obama isn't a citizen. Blunt admitting he believes Obama is a citizen is meaningless. Ask Blunt if he thinks Obama is eligible to be president, i.e. if Obama is the right kind of citizen to be president and you might get a different answer. Lou Dobbs has been pulling this BS. If you listen carefully, you'll hear a lot of people dismiss questions or criticisms saying they believe Obama is a citizen, when that isn't the issue at all.

[quiviran]

08:25 AM on 07/31/2009

Right. Does Blunt retract and denounce the statement "All he has to do is produce a birth certificate. I don't believe that's been done yet, has it?"

If not, he is still giving tacit support to the loonies.

[1differentdrummer]

06:44 AM on 07/31/2009

Blunt is not sharp.

[shanghaislim]

02:20 PM on 07/31/2009

:-) Nice

[hauty007]

04:06 AM on 07/31/2009

STUPID, of course he's a citizen, why is the MEDIA fueling this nonsense?

[bymyinitials]

02:14 AM on 07/31/2009

McCain, who was born in a US territory at the time (Panama) almost flew under the radar of the birthers if he had become President.....Come on people, they are both US citizens and lets move on to something more important........PLEASE!

[PWM]

12:30 PM on 07/31/2009

Actually, McCain was born on foreign soil. The Panama Canal was administered by the US but belonged to Panama. Of course McCain's parents were citizens and as such has a right to run for the office as Obama has the right.

[Tim303]

02:13 AM on 07/31/2009

Birtherism is quite simply evil.

[FaaLaveLave]

01:53 AM on 07/31/2009

Ol' Roy and his son Matt (former Gov. of Missouri) are both a disgrace to my home state of Missouri. How, oh, how, I hope that Carnahan can defeat Roy for U.S. Senator.

[Rayme]

12:28 AM on 07/31/2009

Of course Obama is a citizen because his mother is a citizen of the US, he just was not born in the US, it's not his primary citizenship.

[RedKnuckles]

12:44 AM on 07/31/2009

Ignorance is not very flattering. How many times does everyone have to go over this? He was born in Hawaii in 1961, Hawaii became a state in 1959.

[Rog49Thomas]

07:37 AM on 07/31/2009

Did it really?

Personally I have question about the validity of the referendum accepting statehood which as you might have noticed from President Eisenhower's Proclamation was a condition for statehood. The copy of the Proclamation on the Internet does not have a copy of the Great Seal of the USA on it, but the text says it does.

Until I review each and every paper ballot from that "election" and have the chance to personally ask Former President Eisenhower, I don't consider Hawaii a state.

What are they trying to hide by refusing to release this information and make Ike available?

I want my country back, and at this point minus Hawaii until it's status is definitively cleared up.

[jeff90125]

11:22 AM on 07/31/2009

Who said he is not a citizen? I don't recall anyone saying that.

He is not a natural born citizen.

Natural Born I have found to mean: Born in U.S. to parents who are also citizens. Notice the plural form of "parent" that means both parents.

Obama's father was Kenyan and not a U.S. citizen. If he was not born in Hawaii that would also prevent him from being a U.S. citizen.

He was adopted by Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian. He attended school as an Indonesian citizen. Any U.S. citizenship he had whether natural born or not, was gone at that time.

[shanghaislim]

02:29 PM on 07/31/2009

You make wonderful points.

Can I join you club?

........because, here in China we don't have so many straight forward, logic thinking people like yourself. I would be honored to be a part of your "neato" click!

[ZenBastard]

04:25 PM on 07/31/2009

How many other presidents birth certificates have you demanded to see?