Eric Kleefeld April 26, 2011, 10:33 AM

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) appeared Monday night on CNN’s John King, USA to discuss her recent veto of a “birther bill” — a piece of legislation requiring candidates for public office to submit proof of U.S. citizenship to the state Secretary of State before they could appear on the state’s ballot. And despite the issue’s appeal to the GOP’s Tea Party base, Brewer had nothing good to say about the bill.

“Well, you know, it seems to me that we have talked about this issue now going on probably two years, and that I believe that most people have reached out and they did their investigations, and it’s become such a huge distraction,” said Brewer. “I for one, I believe that what I have seen, and after speaking with governor — or the prior governor of Hawaii — that indeed he [Obama] was born in Hawaii.

“It’s just something that I think is leading our country down a path of destruction, and it just is not serving any good purpose.

Brewer, who previously served as Arizona’s Secretary of State, also said of the bill’s provisions: “It was a bridge way too far to give one person in the state of Arizona — a partisan person at that — the ability to keep a person off the ballot. And it wasn’t just the President of the United States — it was all the way down the path of all elected officials.

“So, it was something that I felt very uncomfortable with signing, having been a prior Secretary of State. And I think we just really need to move on. Everybody’s had two years to prove, if they wanted to, that he was not born in Hawaii. They haven’t come up with any of that kind of proof.

“So, it just seems to me that it’s more political rhetoric, and that it takes the ball off the kinds of subjects that we all ought to be discussing, and that would be jobs and the economy.”

Arizona, Birther, Jan Brewer