Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, has been on a hard-right bender since taking office, gutting employee protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation at Virginia colleges, an action Gov. Bob McDonnell later reversed in an executive order. But apparently homophobia isn't Cuccinelli's only flaw. Not Larry Sabato posted a video yesterday of Cuccinelli during the transition, in which he answers a "hypothetical" question from a birther during which he suggests that Obama having been born in Kenya isn't "beyond the realm of possibility."
He then tried to walk it back in this statement, via Ben Smith:
I absolutely believe that President Obama was born in the United States. I don't buy into the claims that he wasn't. On the recording, I was asked a hypothetical legal question, and I gave a hypothetical legal answer in response. As I said previously, this issue was not a part of my campaign, and it is not part of what I am doing now as attorney general.
It was not merely a "hypothetical legal answer." Here are Cuccinelli's words:
Someone is going to have to come forward with nailed down testimony that he was born in place B, wherever that is. You know, the speculation is Kenya. And that doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility.
He wasn't saying the lawsuit was not "beyond the realm of possibility." He said that Obama being born in Kenya didn't "seem beyond the realm of possibility." His statement "walking back" his birtherism is dishonest on its face.
I'm willing to believe that Cuccinelli doesn't actually believe this stuff and that he was just engaging in a little partisan signifying for the GOP crazy wing. But that doesn't mean he should be let off the hook for saying something as outrageous as suggesting the president was born in Kenya just because he has the good sense to be embarrassed enough to lie about it later.
-- A. Serwer
