Why did you have to go there, Sarah?

The divine Ms. Sarah has stepped into a minefield, thanks to remarks she made yesterday to conservative radio talk show host Rusty Humphries regarding the “Birther” issue (transcript via AJ Strata):

Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?

I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue ’cause I think there are enough members of the electorate who still want answers.

Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?

I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past associations and past voting record — all of that is fair game. You know, I’ve got to tell you, too: I think our campaign, the McCain/Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area. We didn’t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were and perhaps what their future plans were. And I don’t think that that was fair to voters to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of the things that now we’re seeing made manifest in the administration.

I mean, truly, if your past is fair game and your kids are fair game, certainly Obama’s past should be. I mean, we want to treat men and women equally, right?

Hey, you know, that’s a great point, in that weird conspiracy-theory freaky thing that people talk about that Trig isn’t my real son. And a lot of people say, “Well you need to produce his birth certificate! You need to prove that he’s your kid!” Which we have done. But yeah, so maybe we could reverse that and use the same [unintelligible]-type thinking on them.

A couple of things: First, I don’t subscribe to the “Birther” belief about Obama not being legitimately eligible to be President, but at the same time, I’m as mystified as a lot of people – and not just the “Birthers” – as to why he hasn’t produced his actual bc. This become a minor isssue last year with McCain, too, and he promptly took care of it without making a fuss. That Obama has not and, in actuality, refuses to, only adds to the suspicions by some that he’s not Constitutionally eligible to be President. He’s either not doing so because he wants people on the right to look like the fringe “Truthers” do on the left, or he’s doing it because what the “Birthers” are saying about his bc is true. Either way, it’s troubling.

Secondly, Sarah Palin is right in that this is a “legitimate issue” to raise – but because the left crucifies her for every statement she makes and how her statements get magnified to the nth degree by the left’s associates in the mainstream media (as is happening now), a better way for her to have put it is that it is a legitimate issue for others to pursue, but that she’s “not interested in doing so and instead desires to remain focused on the things he’s doing as President that are destroying America’s fundamental ideals.” In fact, she said as much in her follow-up statement to her remarks, but of course follow-up statements look like “clean-up” after the fact, and no one but loyal supporters will care. Handling it in this manner would have put her “above the fray” and given the left less to no ammo, while at the same time, she would still be holding true to her correct standard that the issue is “fair game.”

Re: Humphries’ assertion that if Sarah Palin’s family and past was fair game, then so was Barack Obama’s, I disagree. It’s one thing to talk about the respective pasts of the candidates, but it’s another thing to hurl bogus accusations, especially about family members, as the far left shamelessly did with Palin’s family – mostly regarding Trig. Trig wasn’t running for office, so there should have been no “issue” about his birth certificate. Are you listening, Andrew Sullivan?

In the end, Sarah is who she is, and as AJ Strata noted in his post, she is not a polished politician who puts on airs and rehearses everything, which is one of the things that endears her to a lot of us. That said, I still think she could have handled this answer better. It would have saved her a lot of headaches and having to backtrack and clarify.

Your thoughts?