November 07, 2013 10:42 AM UTC

Owen Hill: "We Already Have Someone From Kenya as President"

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: A blustery and unrepentant Sen. Owen Hill responds via FOX 31's Eli Stokols:

“The fact that my obvious joke is being highlighted today just shows how worried Mark Udall and the Democrats actually are of my campaign for the U.S. Senate here in Colorado,” Hill said in a statement. “These are the typical sleazy tactics used by Mark Udall’s radical operatives who are scared of losing their go to guy in Washington DC. Such dishonest antics show how desperate the Mark Udall machine is over losing its stranglehold on our economy, diverting folks from focusing on his inept Obamacare rollout.”

Frankly, we find this statement more interesting than his original "birther" remark. While Hill makes no apologies for his "joke" about Obama, he is clearly interested in distancing himself from being labeled as a "birther." This again highlights the internal battle facing Republicans. Hill can't apologize, because he needs the right-wing Tea Party types to support him in a primary; at the same time, he knows that this kind of label would not be helpful in a general election, were he to become the GOP nominee.

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Move over, Frank McNulty–as Buzzfeed reports, the Colorado "birther" hits keep coming:

At the Denver County Republican Party’s First Friday Breakfast Nov. 1, [U.S. Senate candidate Owen] Hill made the comment to laughter from the crowd:

“You spend time out there [in a Kenyan slum] and little kids are running around barefoot in these kinds of streets and you ask them what they want to be, they want to be an astronaut, they want to be a physicist, a marine biologist, one kid even told me he wanted to be President of the United States. I held back my snarky comment that said ‘Well, you know what, we already have someone from Kenya as President of the United States.’” [Pols emphasis]

Hill was telling a story about his time working in the Nairobi slums as a top official with Compassion International, a Christian children’s charity. Audio of the remark was captured by a Democratic operative in the room and obtained by BuzzFeed. Hill did not immediately respond to an email and phone message left at his legislative offices Thursday.

We've noted in the past how freshman state Sen. Owen Hill seems out of his league, jumping directly into a U.S. Senate race at such a tender age and with very little political experience.

Well folks, now we know he's a straight-up Kenya-invoking "birther," too. For the purposes of a general election, one might consider that a serious impediment, even disqualifying. In a GOP primary? It's tough to know for sure. Either way, it's now logged in the permanent record.