White House slaps Nathan Deal around

Birther Nathan Deal’s GOP gubernatorial win came up at yesterday’s daily White House press briefing with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Be proud, Georgia:

Q: In the Georgia Republican gubernatorial primary, the winner in that race, Representative Deal, has actually dabbled in birther conspiracies. I don’t know if he is an avowed birther, but he certainly has pushed the notion that the President wasn’t born in this country. And I’m wondering if you — upon reflection, what do you think of the fact that the Republican Party has put forth someone to run a state who doesn’t believe in the President’s birthplace?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think if you look at what Nathan Deal is probably going to have to explain over the course of this primary, that might be some of the least of his concerns — in terms of some ethics investigations that are currently ongoing.

I think having — the last I checked, the results in that race were within a few thousand votes, which means even as you’re hoping to find a nominee, you have a very divided party, with somebody in Roy Barnes who has a track record that Georgians can be proud of.

Q Handel conceded.

MR. GIBBS: But you still have a very splintered party. Again, I think you are hard-pressed to see, whether it is gubernatorial races in Georgia, Connecticut, Denver — I’m sorry, Colorado — and Senate races in Connecticut and Colorado, where Democrats didn’t have an extraordinarily good night and are faced with I think, quite frankly, candidates that are largely out of step with the states and areas that they wish to ultimately represent.

The White House clearly thinks the best angle of attack against Deal is to go after his alleged ethical issues rather than his bigot-baiting.

As a member of the professional left, I would have preferred Gibbs threaten to pound and slice Deal with a hammer and sickle, then dance on his remains while singing the Internationale.

Oh, well.