March 30, 2014 05:21 PM UTC

"Both Ways Birther" Beauprez Busted

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• by: Colorado Pols

FOX 31's Eli Stokols unveils yet another embarrassing moment for 2006 2014 GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez (video above):

In June 2010, Beauprez appeared as a guest on The Talk to Solomon Show, and was asked about whether President Obama was born in American by the host, Stan Solomon, a favorite of fringe conservatives who is an anti-gay birther who said last year that Trayvon Martin “deserves to be dead.”

“On the birth certificate, I don’t know,” Beauprez said, responding to Solomon’s claim that there “is no birth certificate.”

“I’ve heard both sides of it. I find it absolutely astounding that, if he has one, if this is all just a myth, why in the world not put it to bed? There’s a reason why they haven’t at least settled that controversy.”

In April of 2011, after Donald Trump’s birther turn sparked a new wave of media attention around the issue of the president’s American nationality, the White House obtained the original long-form birth certificate from the State of Hawaii and released it to the public.

Beauprez, in the radio interview 10 months prior to that, went further.

“I address it another way: if this guy is an American citizen, he’s a different kind of an American than virtually any that I know,” Beauprez said. [Pols emphasis]

In the few short weeks since failed 2006 gubernatorial candidate Beauprez filed to try again this year, we've been treated to a gusher of absolutely nutty on-record statements from his time between campaigns. There's the 2012 interview in which Beauprez says President Barack Obama is "pushing the boundaries" toward "civil war," and the environmental policy chapter of his 2009 book where Beauprez says climate change is "a complete hoax foisted on most of the world." And that doesn't even count the slapstick comedy, like this property developer and banker who sold the family farm to build a golf course who says he's "lived off the land all of his life."

Be honest, folks, are you surprised to learn that Beauprez is a "birther" too? Beauprez sounds so similar to Rep. Mike Coffman, whose 2012 remarks at an Elbert County GOP fundraiser about how Obama "is just not an American" helped shave Coffman's already perilous margin of victory in 2012 even smaller, that they're practically interchangeable. Arguably, Coffman's 2012 statements were even worse, since back in 2010, "birtherism" was all the rage. By the time Coffman went "birther," even the most obstinate Manchurian Candidate conspiracy theorist should have known better.

But regardless of when it was said, the answer should be the same: the years-long "birther" campaign against President Obama represents one of the ugliest episodes in recent American history. That is not, or at least should not be, a partisan sentiment. The "dog whistle" appeal to racism underlying the endless questions about Obama's birth certificate betrays a side of conservative politics that should have no place in our public discourse.

But thanks to Republican politicians like Mike Coffman and Bob Beauprez, it still does.