Pat Boone and Sheriff Joe’s Arizona ‘Birther’ Party Scrapped - East Idaho News
Politics

Pat Boone and Sheriff Joe’s Arizona ‘Birther’ Party Scrapped

  Published at

103794667?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1347415018767PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images(PHOENIX) — The Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots group has pulled the plug on Pat Boone and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, canceling their Sept. 22 “Birther” bash at the city’s Celebrity Theatre “due to inadequate ticket sales.”

The venue’s website touts an “intimate atmosphere of this 2,650-seat theater in the round” with an “extremely rare revolving stage.”

Prices of entry ranged from $10, for tickets purchased in advance, to $25 if you wanted a “Meet and Greet” with the Maricopa County sheriff, who is pushing for a “Congressional investigation into the fraudulent documents produced by the [Obama] administration.”

The group’s website has posted a blog entry confirming the decision to nix the show.

“We apologize for any inconivienience [sic],” organizer Chris Rossiter wrote, promising that further probes into the validity of President Obama’s birth certificate “will be pursued in earnest.”

When contacted by ABC News, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin said she had no idea that Arpaio, Boone, or Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, a doctor who spent five months in prison after he refused deployment to Afghanistan, were scheduled to headline the affiliate’s gathering.

“I didn’t know about it about until you told me 120 seconds ago,” Martin, who, along with Sarah Palin, was named to Time magazine’s 2010 “Most Influential” leaders list, told ABC News Tuesday. Tea Party Patriots Group leaders in Arizona did not respond to requests for comment.

It’s been an eventful summer for Arpaio, “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” On July 19, the same day he first appeared in court to face accusations he engaged in a systematic campaign of racial profiling, Arpaio convened a press conference in Phoenix, promising to unveil a big break in his “independent investigation” into the validity of the president’s birth certificate.

But supporters were to be disappointed. With no substantial revelations to report, he launched into a tirade against the White House.

“Show us the microfilm,” he said, dismissing the electronic birth certificate released last year by President Obama. “I said it a while back. Show us the microfilm and we’ll all go back home and forget this.”

“We wanted to clear the President of the United States. That was my mission, but it hasn’t happened that way.”

Since then, the racial profiling suit has been dismissed and the feds have dropped a separate abuse-of-power investigation. But Arpaio still faces damaging charges that his office failed to pursue more than 400 sex crimes cases between 2004 and 2007.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION