Michigan Senate Candidate Hoekstra Suggests Federal "Birther" Panel To Review Birth Certificates

By Samantha Abernethy in News on May 31, 2012 9:30PM

Michigan Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pete Jokestra Hoekstra said at a Tea Party meeting that he'd like to establish a federal bureaucracy to evaluate presidential candidates' documents to determine eligibility for office.

Hoekstra swears this proposal is not about President Barack Obama. He says a certification process would, in essence, shut the Birthers up. Hoekstra says it's about preventing the issue in future elections, and he says a "simple certification" of candidates would end the Birthers' doubts that distract from "The Issues." Much like the Warren Commission's report ended all of those JFK assassination conspiracy theories, eh?

Hoekstra said the debate over Obama's birth certificate is over. "We lost that debate in 2008 when our presidential candidate [John McCain] said, 'I ain't talking about it,'" Hoekstra said at the Tea Party meeting.

You may remember former congressman Hoekstra from his infamous racially insensitive Super Bowl ad, which he swears is totally not racist.

CNN interviewed Hoekstra yesterday, and he didn't back down. He even lost his cool a little at the end, as you can see in the video below. As the interviewer, Brooke Baldwin points out, "You're a Republican, why add another layer of bureaucracy to our government? Shouldn't you be opposed to that?"

"I want to make sure that candidates who run for the office of president meet the minimum requirements," he said. "It is an argument that shouldn't be taking place.