So Romney would like to claim that his comment about Obama's birth certificate were "just a joke" and that we should all just ignore it because, after all, it was just "humor."
I'm reminded of an Ellen Degeneres routine about those who try to erase whatever insulting thing they just said by pretending they were "just kidding."
I'm not quite sure I understand. How does the fact that a racist statement was intended as a joke mitigate the racism? Now, I can hear a whole bunch of people crying out about "We should be able to joke about anything!" and various statements and indeed, I agree. We should and can joke about anything. There is no subject on this planet that can't be used as a basis for humor, no matter how insidious the actual subject is when taken seriously.
The question is not the fact that you're making a joke. The question is that what you're making a joke about. Let's go with the premise that Romney, as he has claimed, has always said that Obama was born in Hawaii and is an American citizen by birth. Great.
So what, exactly, is the joke? That he keeps getting asked about his birth certificate? OK. How is it a joke, then, to point out that Romney is never asked for his? If Romney agrees that it is ridiculous that there are those within his party, people whose votes he is actively courting and relying upon, who insist that there is something real about the "questions" of Obama's birthplace and citizenship status, then how is bringing up their opinions and tacitly legitimizing them a "joke"?
It's like those who keep trying to insist that "Gore said he invented the Internet!" No, he didn't. He said nothing of the kind. In fact, nobody thought he did until a couple days later when a right-wing website decided to try and make hay out of a lie and managed to get some people with clout to repeat it.
Now, Gore has since accepted the fact that this became a great symbol of his campaign and he has decided to run with it. But the reason his jokes work is because what he is making fun of is the ludicrousness of the idea that he somehow implied that he pulled a bunch of all-nighters hacking the TCP/IP stack in Pascal while subsisting on Hot Pockets and Mt. Dew.
When a right-winger "jokes" about "Gore said he invented the Internet," it's because he's trying to say that Gore is a liar. There's a difference.
So for Romney to say that he was "just joking," it doesn't fly. Exactly what is the joke? And how does the fact that the insulting thing he said was "just a joke" make it something other than an insult?
And that doesn't even begin to get into the question of why Romney would even think of saying such a thing in the first place. After all, if he truly believes that there is no question about Obama being a natural-born citizen of the United States due to the fact that he was born in Hawaii, then where on earth did this impulse come to talk about how Romney has never been asked to show his birth certificate? It's a complete non sequitur. Even if he was simply trying to engage the crowd, what on earth possessed him to talk about his birth certificate of all things? Especially since he knows that bringing up Obama's birth certificate is politically charged. Especially since he is claiming that he has always said that Obama was born in Hawaii. Yeah, Romney was giving a speech in his hometown, and a case might be made that he was trying to connect with them, but the phrasing as it comes out is so awkward: "Nobody asked to see my birth certificate"?
No...if you were going to go there, you'd say, "Says so right on my birth certificate."
But again, if you know that the question of birth certificates is politically charged and if you agree that it is nonsense to try and question Obama's citizenship, why on earth bring it up in the first place?
Oh, that's right...racist joke.
But it's "just a joke." So how does that make it not racist?