RNC chair says Obama more worried about Oprah, Jonas Brothers, and birthers than economy

Reince Priebus, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, is unsatisfied with who President Obama is palling around with and what the world leader is focused on.

"We’re borrowing four and a half billion dollars a day and this president is more worried about birth certificates, Oprah Winfrey and fundraisers at the Waldorf Astoria," Priebus complained on "CNN Newsroom" Thursday, a day after the president released his long-form Hawaii birth certificate and then jetted to Chicago for a long-scheduled interview with the daytime queen of talk.

“It’s maddening and I just wish the president would engage in the real issues that are affecting America,” Priebus, who recently replaced Michael Steel, said. "We've got him going to Jonas Brothers, golfing, doing everything except figuring out a way to save Medicare that's going to go bankrupt in nine years," he added.

The president, who was one of the people who never seemed very worried about birth certificates, said Wednesday that he too would rather work on the pressing issues of the day instead of being distracted by the likes of billionaire Donald Trump and other 'birthers' who seemed obsessed with Obama's birth.

"We've got enormous challenges ahead of us," the president said Wednesday in Washington, D.C., when he released his long-form birth certificate. "We have to make a series of very difficult decisions about how we invest in our future but also get ahold of the deficit and debt," he said. "But we're not going to be able to do it if we are distracted. We're not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other. We're not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts. We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers."

The president said that the media was partially to blame for the hype surrounding his birth certificate.

"I would not have the networks breaking in if I was talking about [national security]," he said, referring to the television networks interrupting their scheduled programming to give all their viewers the chance to hear the president explain how he was able to make public the more detailed Hawaiian document.

Now that Trump, who leads other would-be GOP presidential candidates in preliminary polls, has lost his trump card and has moved on to demanding that Obama release his school records, would Priebus encourage his own party to engage in real issues that are affecting America?

"It's not my job to play police officer with the candidates," Priebus told CNN's Carol Costello. "It's up to the voters to play police officer and go into the voting booth."

RELATED:

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President Obama's long-form birth certificate

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-- Tony Pierce
twitter.com/busblog

Photo: File photo of Reince Priebus Credit: Liz Sidotti / Associated Press

 

Comments

[Merrily Snider]

Ya know, for all of you who try to pretend to know what it is like to be president, spend 1 day of a normal week in his chair and then you can criticize. In most cases, you dimwits' brains will have exploded.

[jC]

Exactly WHO is more worried about birth certificates?! This is the thing with so many Republican leaders. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I'd be so happy to see a Republican back in office in 2012 to watch the country sink further than Bush sunk us but there's never any 'I told you so'!

[Mr Vanderdecken]

The first time I yelled at the television was when Mr. Obama II was castigating us over the Beer Garden flap. Remember that? He butted in on local events to bully us.

I thought then, wow, with the an entire country to run and get back on his feet his is worried about this?

I knew then it would be down hill from there and it has been a non stop lecture about how we should behave as Americans and not about how he should behave as President.

What burns me up is this Jerk we have as our President thought it was really funny to tease the nut jobs about his birth certificate.

Funny, real funny pal. Thanks for wasting all that time. Guess next he will want to trip Blind people, or throw thumbtacks under wheelchairs. Wow, I can't wait for his next joke on the American People.

Will he come out next week and let us all in on the funny parts of getting us involved in a War in Libya? I would love to hear the punch line on that one.

[Matt]

What an idiot! I swear if Obama would say the sky is blue...The Rep would say its green. This guy cant win with these folks. They just want to take us back a century. They hate Hispanics, Blacks, Gays, The Poor etc

[Paul]

"It's not my job to play police officer with the candidates," but it IS his job to tell Obama that he shouldn't mention anything about the Republican-produced "birther" issue? Give me a break.

Apologize, Reince. Man up.

[nps_ca]

Vanderdecken: Wow - do you really believe what you just wrote. We have a President trying to do his job and a party (the GOP) that is imploding with idiotic candidates and even worse party leadership. It's people like you and your thinking that allows the numbskull clueless media darlings in the GOP get their 15 mins of fame. I want a GOP of respectable, responsible caring leaders - I don't see it - and if you would wake up you wouldn't see it either.

[Jack C NYC]

The only way from the bottom is up. 



After steering America into the worst economic meltdown since the great depression republicans seem to think they "know" how to right the ship they almost sunk. 



The worst 8 years in American history 2000-2008. But many believe the GOP party of no-responsiblity, just like there are those that believe the earth is no more than 5,000 years old.

[GMK]

I knew that if Obama went to the trouble of obtaining the original, that this would not go away. He should have ignored the whole thing. The whole point is moot anyway, because in order to be a "natural born citizen", you simply need to be a US citizen at the time of your birth, and that does NOT require that you are physically born in the continental USA.

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html

[marc awodey]

here's a plan to save medicare- tax the hell out of republican liars such as Priebus!