LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. (AP) - The Baltimore Orioles distanced themselves Wednesday from Luke Scott’s interview with Yahoo! Sports, with a team spokesman saying the outfielder’s comments do not reflect the opinion of the organization.
Scott gave a wide-ranging interview to the website’s baseball blog on Tuesday during which he said President Barack Obama “does not represent America” and he believes Obama wasn’t born in the United States.
“That’s my belief,” Scott told the website. “I was born here. If someone accuses me of not being born here, I can go _ within 10 minutes _ to my filing cabinet and I can pick up my real birth certificate and I can go, “See? Look! Here it is. Here it is.” The man has dodged everything. He dodges questions, he doesn’t answer anything. And why? Because he’s hiding something.”
Scott, who lives in Florida in the offseason, talked to Yahoo! Sports at the winter meetings.
“Luke Scott’s comments do not reflect the opinion of the Baltimore Orioles organization,” team spokesman Greg Bader said Wednesday in an e-mail. “The fact is that Barack Obama is our President, duly elected by the people of the United States. End of story.”
So-called “birthers” have contended since the 2008 presidential campaign that Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born in Kenya, his father’s homeland. The Constitution says that a person must be a “natural-born citizen” to be eligible for the presidency.
Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed Obama’s citizenship, and his Hawaiian birth certificate has been made public, along with birth notices from two Honolulu newspapers published within days of his birth in August 1961.
The Associated Press left a message Wednesday seeking comment from Scott.
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