The White House announced this morning that President Obama will visit Kenya in July for a meeting on global business development, as part of the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit. It will be the president’s fourth trip to sub-Saharan Africa, but his first to Kenya, the country his father is from.
Given that Kenya has one of the fastest growing economies on the continent, it stands to reason that the administration would participate in the forum, though it appears one of the president’s Republican critics has a different take.
President Obama is “inciting” the passions of so-called birthers, who believe he was born in Kenya not the United States, by planning a trip to the African country, former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R) said Monday.“I think his trip back to Kenya is going to create a lot of chatter and commentary amongst some of the hard right who still don’t see him as having been born in the U.S.,” he said during an appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”“I personally think he’s just inciting some chatter on an issue that should have been a dead issue a long time ago.”
Oh, I see. There’s a Global Entrepreneurship Summit coming up this summer, and many world leaders will be in attendance, but President Obama should sideline himself, on purpose. Why? Because, in the mind of John Sununu, the president will “incite” ridiculous people to say ridiculous things.
Since when is this how any sensible White House is supposed to function?
For context, let’s not forget that John Sununu, the former three-term governor of New Hampshire and a former White House chief of staff, was the national chairman of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012.
During the campaign, Sununu condemned the president as “lazy,” said the president should “learn how to be an American,” and said Colin Powell only endorsed the president because they’re both African American.
It seems, in other words, that some Republicans make ridiculous comments all on their own, without the president “inciting” them. It’s probably wise, then, that the White House focuses primarily on governing, without concern for whether or not decisions “create a lot of chatter and commentary amongst some of the hard right.”
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."