Birther Hall of Shame

Tennessee is becoming known as a capital of the "birther" conspiracy theory - people who think that President Obama was born in Kenya, or Russia, on Mars... anywhere but Hawaii. They're crazy, they're wrong, but that doesn't stop them.

You'd think that this conspiracy theory would stay on the fringe - but no, the mainstream of the Republican Party has embraced it, seeking any way to smear our President. Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey has joined Stacey Campfield and Marsha Blackburn in publicly questioning whether our President is a citizen of our country.

But we can fight back. Vote with your dollars for who you think is the most outrageous birther, and your contribution will go towards making sure they get turned out of office.

The birther with the most dollar-votes will be named Tennessee's Most Valuable Birther.

(Of course, should any of these Republican leaders come to their senses and clearly repudiate the comments below, we'll remove them from the Hall of Shame. But we're not holding our breath.)

Birther	Elected Office	Quote	Vote for Me!
	Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the Senate, State Senate District 2 (Blountville)	"I don’t know whether President Obama is a citizen of the United States or not. I don’t know what the whole deal is there." Link
	US House of Representatives, District 7 (Brentwood)	U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn is one of six Republican sponsors of a bill that would require future presidential candidates to show their birth certificates to prove they meet the Constitutional requirements to serve. Link
	State House District 63 (Franklin)	“I know he’s an American citizen, but let’s just get this thing out there and let’s put everbody’s mind at ease.” Link
	State House District 17 (Knoxville)	"I think he ought to show his birth certificate. If my grandkid wants to play Little League ball, he's got to show a birth certificate. If it's not too much to ask of a Little League baseball player, it's not to much to ask of the president. He ought to go ahead and show it and make everybody shut up. I don't see what the problem is. There's a lot of unanswered questions floating around. I don't think that's asking too much of the most powerful man in the free world. You don't just ignore the Constitution the way the federal government has started doing now. I don't know where Obama was born. Who knows what the truth is these days?" Link
	State House District 25 (Pikeville)	“Barack Obama needs to release his original birth certificate and prove where he was born so we can move on.” Rep. Swafford said he signed the agreement to participate in the lawsuit as a “private” citizen. After it was pointed out the pledge was written on his official legislative stationary, Rep. Swafford said he is a “citizen legislator” and that he uses legislative stationary when he is in Nashville. Link
	State House District 7 (Jonesborough)	"We've said on this program many times ... we've had people call in and say why are you picking on him? And I've said, 'Look it's really simple. If he is a U.S. citizen you produce the papers. If he's not a U.S. citizen, what does he do? He hides them. He's hiding them. We need the truth. We need the documents unsealed. We need to know what's going on." Link
	State House District 18 (Knoxville)	"I also heard many people say how they did not think [President Obama] was qualified to run based on his questionable place of birth." Link