Franks aide clarifies 'enemy of humanity' comment
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A spokeswoman for a Republican congressman who called President Obama "an enemy of humanity" said Tuesday that he should have clarified that he was talking about the president's policies on abortion.
Bethany Haley, a spokeswoman for Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, told CNN on Tuesday the congressman was actually referring to "unborn humanity" — a specific reference to the president's policies on abortion.
Franks used the term in a speech to conservative activists Saturday in St. Louis, pointing to Obama's decision to aid international family planning clinics that perform abortions.
"A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can't do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity," Franks said.
In an interview with the Washington Independent after the speech, Franks also renewed a call for Obama to produce a copy of his birth certificate to end the questions by "birthers" who doubt the president's birthplace. Franks said he had once considered filing a lawsuit to get it, but did his own investigation and became convinced that the president was born in the United States.
"Probably, Barack Obama could solve this problem and make the birthers, you know, back off, by simply showing us his long-form birth certificate," Franks said. "That'd solve the problem. There's some other issue, I don't know what it is, that he doesn't want people to see the birth certificate on."
