The head of the Alabama Republican Party this week threw his support behind one of the most far-fetched theories of the already bizarre birther movement.
Speaking to a group of GOP diehards on Wednesday in Fairhope, Ala., party Chair Bill Armistead raved about a film called “Dreams From My Real Father.” The movie claims President Obama’s grandfather was a CIA agent who convinced Barack Obama Sr. to marry his teenage daughter to hide the fact that she’d been secretly impregnated by a communist.
The Mobile Press-Register reported that Armistead’s comments came after he was asked by someone in the group about another film, “2016: Obama’s Presidency,” which also weaves elaborate theories about the president’s upbringing.
“If you haven’t seen it, you should,” Armistead said, according to the newspaper. “But I’m going to tell you about another movie. The name of it is ‘Dreams From My Real Father.’ That is absolutely frightening. I’ve seen it. I verified that it is factual, all of it.”
Armistead’s comments were first posted to Twitter by the Press-Register’s political editor but quickly caught fire after being picked up by Right Wing Watch.
The 97-minute film, by director Joel Gilbert, has split the birther movement, which generally believes the president is not a natural born U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible to be president.
Instead of focusing on claims about the president’s Hawaiian birth certificate, the film is narrated by an Obama impersonator and claims the president is a closeted communist, bent on instilling a “classic Stalinist-Marxist agenda upon America at home and abroad.” A disclaimer for the film notes that many of the scenes are “re-creations of probable events, using reasoned logic, speculation, and approximated conversations.”
The film’s website does not list any upcoming screenings, but, according to the conspiracy site WND, Gilbert has said millions of copies were being sent to households in swing states this year.
