Our Senator, Richard Shelby, In Action ::

Senator Richard Shelby (R-Al) was speaking to a group of citizens this weekend down in Cullman, Alabama and had this exchange with a constituent:

Another local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama’s U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.

“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.”

According to the Associated Press, state officials in Hawaii checked health department records during the campaign and determined there was no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.

So, a citizen asked Shelby about a discredited meme and Shelby does not set the record straight that the question of Obama's citizenship has long ago been settled, but rather he knowingly obfuscates the issue. When pressed for a clarification here's what Shelby's spokesman, Jason Graffeo, has to say as noted on Politico:

Graffeo calls to say that the Cullman Times report is a "distortion" and that Shelby mentioned that he hadn't seen the birth certificate only as a "throwaway line" while listing the qualifications for office and explaining that the issue had been examined at length and put to rest.

Here's a further clarification from Graffeo:

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.

Politico is trying to get a transcript of the exchange but, regardless of what that shows, the fact is that Shelby knowingly let a lie about the birthplace of President Obama continue to circulate with no effort on his part to discredit this lie. That in itself is abhorrent and deserves a personal apology from Shelby to Obama!

The truly unfortunate thing is that Shelby will most certainly only face token competition, if that, for his senate seat when he runs for reelection given that he reportedly has around $13mil in his campaign war chest.