Colorado congressman: “Obama’s not an American”

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Source: Salon

A congressman renews the GOP's big lie, and reveals the party's true ideal: Male, rich, straight, white

Twenty-four hour news cycles are messy and chaotic, almost never fully summarizing the zeitgeist of the moment. But today is one of those rare days where the news cycle perfectly embodies the tectonic shifts in American politics — and the friction that comes from such shifts.

In the last day, we’ve learned that America has reached a demographic tipping point. For the first time in history, there are more minority births than white births in the United States, meaning we’re closer than ever to becoming a majority minority nation.

At almost exactly the same time these numbers were being released, a top Republican lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), was making national headlines with a leaked audio recording of him publicly declaring that the first African-American president is “not an American.” Here’s the audio and full quote from Coffman’s remarks at a Republican fundraiser:

“I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”

Coffman has since issued a non-apology apology, saying that while he misspoke in questioning Obama’s birth certificate, he stands by his “not an American” declaration because Obama doesn’t “share my belief in American Exceptionalism — his policies reflect a philosophy that America is but one nation among many equals.”

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2012/05/17/colorado_congressman_obamas_not_an_american/?utm_medium=twitter