Governor seeks to discredit ‘birthers’

December 25, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Chicago Tribune

HONOLULU

Frustrated by what he sees as a never-ending campaign to undermine President Barack Obama, Hawaii’s new governor says he plans to use his new post to counter conspiracy theorists who continue to allege that the president was not born in the United States.

Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat who took office Dec. 6, has known Obama since the president’s days growing up in Hawaii. He’s also one of the few people who knew both Obama’s father, also named Barack, and mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.

That long-standing relationship is a major reason Abercrombie, 72, takes umbrage with the persistent effort by Obama’s most ardent foes to assert that he was born in Kenya, which would constitutionally bar him from holding the office of president.

“Now that I’m governor, I’m going to do something about that,” Abercrombie vowed during an interview in the state capitol. Abercrombie, who spent 19 years representing Hawaii’s 1st District as one of the more liberal members of Congress, acknowledged he has not yet determined a specific remedy.

“What bothers me is that some people who should know better are trying to use this for political reasons,” he said. Leaning forward from behind his desk, he added, “Maybe I’m the only one in the country that could look you right in the eye right now and tell you, ‘I was here when that baby was born.’”

An Abercrombie aide said the governor is voicing the frustration of many Hawaiians who are troubled by the rumors, which they see as emblematic of the view that Hawaiians are not Americans in the same way as those who live in the continental United States.