Obama birth denier boasts of GOP friends

WASHINGTON, July 27 (UPI) -- The woman leading the movement challenging President Barack Obama's U.S. birth says she's made some high-profile Republican friends on her Facebook page.

Among those who asked to be her friend? Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, and Reps. Mary Bono Mack of California and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Politico reported.

"I am in total disbelief and greatly honored," Orly Taitz, a Russian-born dentist-lawyer in Orange County, Calif., wrote on her blog Monday after Cantor appeared as one of her Facebook friends. "To me it means that the leadership of the Republican party understands the importance of the issues and legal cases I brought forward."

So-called birthers argue -- despite credible evidence to the contrary -- that Obama is not U.S. born and so is ineligible to be president. Obama's campaign last year provided a copy of his certificate of live birth issued by Hawaii.

During the daily media briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said there was nothing he could do to make birthers back off.

Gibbs also criticized the "made-up fictional nonsense of whether or not the president was born in this country."

"If I had some DNA it wouldn't assuage those who don't believe he was born here," Gibbs said. "The president was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the 50th state of the greatest country on the face of the Earth."

A Cantor spokesman cautioned against making too much of Facebook friendships.

"It does not signal an endorsement of the views of any individual or group," Brad Dayspring said.