Balance of Power

Somehow, the House got 158 Republicans — including nearly all members of the leadership — to vote for a resolution last night that declares President Obama was born in Hawaii. But it appears that the resolution wasn’t intentionally aimed at the fringe movement plaguing the Republican Party these days: the people who insist Obama isn’t actually a citizen of the United States.

Instead, aides to Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii — the sponsor of the resolution — say the impact on the “birther” movement was just an amusing sideshow to a resolution that was just supposed to be a simple celebration of the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood.

“When we realized that it might stir them up, we just kind of smiled,” said Abercrombie spokesman Dave Helfert.

The resolution, adopted last night on a vote of 378-0, notes that “the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.” To Abercrombie, who was friends with Obama’s father and knew the president when he was a toddler, any resolution celebrating Hawaii’s anniversary would naturally mention Obama because “it is a matter of great pride in Hawaii that Barack Obama is a native son,” Helfert said.