Here are some interesting excerpts from this morning's White House Press Gaggle, regarding President Obama's birth certificate, featuring Press Secretary Jay Carney, Director of Communications Dan Pfeiffer and White House Counsel Bob Bauer at 8:48 A.M. EDT:
Q Bob, can you explain why President Obama let this drag on for four years? Was it Donald Trump that prompted you to issue this?
MR. BAUER: I’ll let Dan --
MR. PFEIFFER: Sure.
Q I know you expected that question, right? (Laughter.)
MR. PFEIFFER: He even said you would be the one who would ask it. (Laughter.)
I don’t think this dragged on for four years because this was a resolved -- for those of you who remember the campaign, this issue was resolved in 2008. And it has not been an issue, none of you have asked about it, called about it, reported on it until the last few weeks.
And as I said earlier, it probably would have been -- a lot of the pundits out there have talked about the fact that this whole birther debate has been really bad for the Republican Party and would probably be good for the President politically. But despite that, the President, as I said, was struck by how this was crowding out the debate, particularly around the budget, on important issues, and was an example of the sort of sideshows that our politics focuses on instead of the real challenges that we have to confront as a country.
And so that’s why he made this decision now, because it became an issue that transcended sort of this -- it essentially was something that was talked about, as I said, from the nether regions of the Internet onto mainstream network newscasts. In fact, Jay has been asked about this just yesterday in this room.
Q So I guess the implication is that you did get political advantage by having not released this until today, over the course of the last four years?
MR. PFEIFFER: There has been -- no one that I can recall actually asked us to -- we were asked to release the President’s birth certificate in 2008. We did that. And then no one -- it never -- up until a few weeks ago, there was never an issue about that that wasn’t the birth certificate from any credible individual or media outlet. And it hasn’t been until -- I mean, Jay was asked about this yesterday --
Q You’ve got two certified copies, according to this study. You have these physical --
MR. PFEIFFER: Yes. I showed you one. Just one.
Q You showed us a photocopy of one.
MR. PFEIFFER: No, I showed you --
Q Does that have a stamp?
MR. PFEIFFER: It has a seal on it.
Q Not to give Donald Trump more publicity than he has, but is he the person who sort of -- sort of that bridge between what you're calling a fringe and the mainstream? Do you think that he’s the reason why this tripped the switch to a level where you now have to deal with something you thought was dealt with?
MR. PFEIFFER: It’s not for me to say why mainstream media organizations began to cover this debate. They’ll have to answer that for themselves.
Q How concerned were you about running against Donald Trump in a general election?
MR. PFEIFFER: I'd refer any questions on the election to the campaign.
Friday, May 6, 2011 at 7:22PM
