Huckabee Plays Footsie with the Birthers

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) (in what a spokesperson now is claiming was simply a misstatement) claimed that President Obama grew up in Kenya and expressed, at the very least, ambivalence regarding his place of birth.

The only reason I'm not as confident that there's something about the birth certificate, Steve, is because I know the Clintons [inaudible] and believe me, they have lots of investigators out on him, and I'm convinced if there was anything that they could have found on that, they would have found it, and I promise they would have used it.

Kevin Drum gives Huckabee credit for the best birther-dodge he's seen -- playing off the image of the Clinton's as ruthless smear-merchants as a reason why he's "not as confident" about the birth certificate being a legitimate issue. Unfortunately, the interviewer's follow-up managed to destroy that, as he plays off the emergent-theme of the Obama campaign as Chicago-style mafiosos as well: "The Clintons probably - there was probably a lot on the Clintons that the Obamas could have said, 'yeah, you do that, we'll come back with this.'" In any event, "I'm not as confident" is hardly the resounding rejection of birtherism that we ought to expect from any serious political figure.

Meanwhile, Jon Chait wonders why Obama's supposed "Kenyan anti-colonialism" is supposed to be a bad thing, given that the Tea Party is metaphorically inspired by ... resistance to British colonialism.