Obama birth flap generates apology

WASHINGTON – Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett has apologized for any embarrassment he caused his state when he revived a widely discredited conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama’s birthplace by requesting verification that the president was born in Hawaii.

The apology came on the same day that Hawaii officials responded to Bennett’s request for “verification in lieu of” the birth certificate, which he said last week could be a precondition for placing Obama’s name on the Arizona ballot.

“If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn’t my intent,” Bennett said Tuesday in an interview with a local radio station.

Obama’s name will appear on the ballot “as long as he fills out the same paperwork and does the same things that everybody else has,” Bennett said.

Still, Bennett – who insists he is not a member of the “birther” movement that continues to promote the unsubstantiated claim that Obama was born in Kenya and is therefore ineligible to be president – defended himself for making the request.

“What is so sacred or untouchable about this question that you can’t even ask the question?” he said.