Enough already. Somebody’s putting LSD into the water conservatives and other wackoes are drinking — that’s the only rational explanation for continued complaints about Barack Obama’s birth eligibility for the presidency.
First, here’s the rational view of the issue, from FactCheck.org, “Born in the USA.”
Here are a few of the sites that seem to have lost all touch with reality, and continue to whine that Obama might somehow be ineligible for the presidency:
Do you trust your nation's future to this man? - Conservatives' expert advisor Leo C. Denofrio, from his seat at a Caesar's Palace poker table
- Sonoran News, “the conservative voice of Arizona,” which has put its trust in a poker player who, they claim, has the best case against Obama’s eligibility. (Cue Rolling Stones: “Let’s drink to the hard working people . . . Let’s think of the wavering millions, Who need leaders but get gamblers instead . . .”) No, I’m not making this up.
- World Net Daily (well, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that a paper that defines insanity is involved); WND founder Joseph Farah pushes this though, if he has a brain in his head, he must know better; I’ll challenge Farah below
- Tulsa Today, a local blog in Tulsa, Oklahoma (these guys are desperate — they’ll take anything they can get)
- The Bulletin, a local blog in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (unrelated to the late, great Philadelphia Bulletin, which ceased publication in 1982)
- Death by 1000 Paper Cuts, which bills itself as the worldwide leader of weird news
- Atlas Shrugs (which always strikes me as competing with the previous blog for leading in weird); also here
- Off My Front Porch (no, not John McCain’s site)
- ProLife America Forums
- And the always irrational Texas Darlin’ (Earlier this year, in the middle of a rant about how Obama wasn’t even born in Hawaii, a commenter on the blog noted that the Honolulu newspapers listed Obama’s birth in 1961, from information the newspapers got from the State of Hawaii. TD didn’t miss a step: The blog claimed Obama gave up his citizenship, or that his mother hadn’t been a citizen long enough. One wishes one had the tinfoil concession.)
Weird enough, irrational enough yet? As odd as these sites are, sometimes the comments get even odder. It doesn’t help the rationality quotient that so many of these bloggers block out or strike down comments that present an alternative case or rational answers.
And in fact, it’s partly because of Texas Darlin’s anti-rational-comment pose that I put this post up. Somebody, somewhere, needs to suggest the rational foundations, and inject them into the discussion.
A commenter named Carlyle states the basic case of the birth-certificate-obsessed people (BCOs). It’s a nutty case, ungrounded in fact or logic, but Texas Darlin’ won’t allow responses. So, here are some of the things these people are not thinking about as they fold ever-thicker tinfoil hats.
But let me back up for a moment and lay out the two great truths. These are the things that are known without doubt and far above speculation.
1. FACT – Obama has never provided admissable auditible citizenship documentation to anybody. No complete birth certificate, no passport, no selective service registration, nothing, zero, nada, zippo. Nobody can produce any of this stuff – not DNC, FEC, DOJ, State SecStates, electors – nobody.
No, actually Carlyle is doing a lot of speculation there (as are other BCOs). Almost all of these rants are based on speculation, wild speculation far outside of what is known. The key questions would revolve around what sorts of evidence would be admissible as evidence in a court of law in the U.S. Very few of these anti-Obama rants ever bother to touch ground on those issues. The birth certificate issued by the State of Hawaii, posted by the Obama campaign for months, is the legally-admissible document. The ranters have to ignore that to get on to the rest of their complaints.
Beyond the legally-admissible, there are logical cascades of events to which we can point, which strongly suggest the ranters are truly full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
First, in order to obtain a passport, for one example, one must provide “admissible, auditable citizenship documentation” to the U.S. Department of State. We know Obama has held a passport for many years, so we can be reasonably certain he provided that information originally (Do you have a passport? How did you get it without a birth certificate? I got a diplomatic speedy process, and I still had to provide a birth certificate . . .).
Propagandist-and-self-promoter-for-hire Jerome Corsi claims Obama didn’t travel on a U.S. passport, claiming results from an impossible Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. State Department.
Obama’s passport is a matter of record (though privacy laws do not allow release of the passport itself, generally). Without evidence to the contrary, this presents a rebuttable presumption that Obama is a citizen. Does anyone else have information that the birth certificate Obama gave State was wrong? Obviously not — the BCOs don’t appear to have been aware such a thing was even required.
Second, one of the things State checked for when I applied for a passport (when I worked in the Senate) was my Selective Service Status. Hypothetically, they don’t want to grant a passport to someone who is not registered. Again, under the rules of civil procedure, we have a rebuttable presumption that Obama’s draft registration was fine when he traveled as a student. If it was fine then, absent a showing from anyone that there was a later event that made the draft registration invalid, we should assume that State did their job. As a pragmatic matter, the draft ended in the early 1970s, so there could be almost no issue that could have caused Obama’s draft status to change. It’s pretty clear that his draft registration is valid.
Third, Obama is a lawyer. In order to get a license to practice law, applicants must provide a certified copy of a birth certificate to the National Conference of Bar Examiners, in order to be eligible to take the bar exam. The National Conference then does a background investigation on all candidates, generally an investigation more thorough than the FBI’s checking for most federal appointees. In the past, the Conference has reported issues like minor drug use, preventing people from becoming lawyers in several states. Absent a showing by someone that the National Conference granted special waivers, or a showing of other irregularities, the fact that Obama held a license to practice law presents a rebuttable presumption that his birth certificate is valid exactly as he alleges, and that his draft status is legal. Obviously, the BCOs have no information to indicate any irregularity, since they were unaware of this check. We should assume, therefore, that Obama has a valid birth certificate and draft registration, since the Illinois Bar got a recommendation from the National Conference of Bar Examiners that Obama was morally fit to be a lawyer.
Fourth, Obama is a U.S. Senator. As a matter of standard operating procedure, the FBI does a thorough background check on every elected Member of Congress, to certify that they are eligible for top secret clearance, since every member will be seeing national secrets. Occasionally these checks produce questions, which are usually resolved by the Rules Committee of each house. There is no record of any proceeding dealing with any irregularity in the background check for Sen. Obama. This means that there is a rebuttable presumption that the FBI was satisfied with Obama’s citizenship status, as well as his patriotism and ability to keep state secrets.
Furthermore, for members of the Armed Services, Intelligence oversight, and Foreign Relations Committees, there is a more thorough background check by the FBI, since many of these members will be seeing a lot of secrets, and many of them will be talking with foreign dignitaries and visiting foreign nations, and in other ways would have opportunities to pass state secrets to non-allies and even enemies of the U.S. The simple fact that Obama sat on the Foreign Relations Committee and was, in fact, chairman of the NATO subcommittee (which deals with secrets of many of the allies of the U.S.), creates a fourth rebuttable presumption that Obama’s citizenship status, draft status, patriotism and ability to wave the flag and sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” are above reproach.
Obviously, BCOs don’t have any information to suggest there is any problem with this tougher security clearance, and in fact appear to be wholly unaware that such an investigation had been done, or could be done.
Fifth, since the November 4 election, Sen. Obama has been getting the daily National Security briefiing that President Bush gets. This briefing includes our nation’s most precious secrets, and cannot be done, even for the president, without the CIA and Homeland Security verifying that the man is who he says he is.
BCOs have no information to overcome the several rebuttable presumptions that Obama’s credentials are in order, evidenced by their total lack of awareness that such procedures even exist.
So, in five ways, we have assurances that Obama is wholly legal and qualified to hold the office of the presidency. Neither TD’s commenter Carlyle nor any other BCO has any basis to question these federal and state agencies, nor have they suggested any irregularity in any one of these processes which would lead to the irrational conclusion that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, or not eligible to be president.
Sixth, Obama posted his birth certificate in June, on-line [archived version here]. Are these people Google impaired?
2. FACT – Against numerous attempts by journalists and courts to ask for such information, Obama has uniformaly resisted. One might even say beligerently so.
One might say that, but one would be prevaricating, belligerently. As noted above, Obama’s birth certificate is available on-line. So much for resistance. So far as we know, every reporter who asked was able to view the actual certificate with it’s stamp of authority from the State of Hawaii. Such analyses have been done, written about, and posted on-line. Are they Google AND Yahoo impaired?
Do the BCOs have any serious evidence of any problems that the U.S. State Department, the FBI, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the State Bar of Illinois, the FBI again, the Rules Committee of the U.S. Senate, the CIA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security missed? What is their evidence?
We challenge them to be specific. If they are claiming something like an aged grandmother’s testimony that Obama was born in Kenya, they should have the good sense not to waste the court’s time about such folderol unless unless have a sworn affidavit from the woman, taken down by a court reporter, and corroborating evidence (Corsi did not even bother to get statements, let alone sworn statements under oath, I understand — he’s asking a Supreme Court hearing for inadmissible hearsay).
And Joseph Farah, here’s my challenge to you: Provide corroboration for your charges, provide affidavits where they would be required, provide evidence of error on the parts of these federal and state agencies, or shut up about it. Even scandal-sheet journalists have some responsibility to at least try to look like they care about accuracy. Farah owes it to his readers to get things right. He’s not living up to the duty he owes.
What do they have?
Why must we entertain cargo cultists in their dances? We have two wars and a crashing economy to fix. Can we get on with the transition, please?
Barack Obama's birth certificate, showing the state's stamp of authenticity, from FactCheck.org
See Updates:
Please share the information.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
The first set of “1s” you complain about are rubber stamps, not typewriters.
Admit it — you’re a grand crank. You don’t know beans about document analysis, and you’ve never done any due diligence work, in real life. You con’t have a clue what you’re talking about. You mistake rubber stamp dirt for intent of someone to draw heart.
None of your complaints suggests any reason to doubt the State of Hawaii. You’ve got a document under seal — a verification of the highest order under common law, English law and U.S. law — from a state government. To suggest a forgery, you’d have to have some evidence of forgery, plus clear evidence that the document you claim to be forged was known to be false by the State of Hawaii. You have no evidence that any information on the document is false, so you have no case. If it were not a rubber stamp, that someone were to put a heart as a dot on an i does nothing for your case (but for heaven’s sake, man! That’s a rubber stamp made from an ink signature. Being blobby at the bottom is not evidence someone meant to draw a heart; dirt on the rubber stamp, or wear on the rubber stamp, doesn’t indicate fraud or forgery — even if it looks to a pareidolia-struck guy like a smiley face.
So the score remains the same: There are six different actions by governmental bodies that create six different presumptions in favor of Obama’s birth certificate being exactly what it says it is — seven if we count the subsequently-released long-form certificate — and your seeing smiley faces where they don’t exist and your imagining hearts in place of dots on the letter “i” does not even begin to overcome any of the presumptions.
It’s a document under seal. (See Federal Rule of Evidence 902, to get an idea of the importance.) To disprove the authenticity of the document, you’d have to provide a mountain of confirmed evidence that the document was false to begin with, and so the State of Hawaii committed fraud or gross error in attesting to the accuracy of the document and its information. To suggest the document were a forgery you’d need to indicate not that the image was bad, but you’d have to show what the correct information is, and you’d have to do a lot better than complain about the image from a rubber stamp. You’d have to do that based on the analysis of the original document, not a digital image.
You’ve not even seen the document.
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Tattoo, you have no evidence.
Why should we take your word and the word of a bunch of racist crackers who are scared of “The Big Scary Black Man in the White House” over the word of the Governor of Hawaii, the head of the health department in Hawaii, former President George W Bush’s administration, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the John McCain campaign, the FBI, the Secret Service, the CIA, and the NSA?
You think that none of those organizations/groups vetted Barack Obama? Really? What planet do you live on?
For you to be right there has to have been a conspiracy ongoing for 40+ years starting with a white woman, for some dumb reason, going from Hawaii to Kenya (a place with good health care to a place with not good health care) to give birth to a baby and then somehow got the newspapers in Hawaii and the government of Hawaii to falsify documents and that conspiracy has been ongoing for 40+ years because somehow she knew when her son was born that he would grow up and run for the White House.
Oh please. Whatever illegal drug that you’re ingesting to so screw up your mind so that chain of events seems credible in your mind please stop ingesting…it’s melting your brain.
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Tatoott, do you have anything to say? yes if you can see.avi
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Oh by the way, Lower, I’m waiting for you to show enough intellectual honesty to denounce Tattoo and his birtheritis.
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Tatoott, do you have anything to say? I can’t find anything there that suggests the long-form birth certificate was false, especially after we discount any claims from anyone who did not analyze the document itself.
Have you ever thought of asking your physician for help on this issue? You should. In that entire grande opus of a post, there is not a single suggestion of a hint of an iota of evidence to overcome any one of the six problems this post here presents for you. You don’t have a hint of an argument. And you don’t have an argument for thousands of words.
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3/9/2012 updateTypewriter-Obama’s ‘Typed’ Long Form Birth Cert Forged.avi
http://tatoott1009.com/2012/03/09/392012-updatetypewriter-obamas-typed-long-form-birth-cert-forged-avi/
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[…] 6 ways challenges to Obama’s eligibility fail Share this:TwitterStumbleUponDiggRedditFacebookEmailLike this:LikeOne blogger likes this post. […]
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To quote:
The fact that his father is born in Kenya disqualifies him to be POTUS because by virtue of his father’s birth the Obamanation is not a Natural Born Citizen as required by the U.S. Constitution.
His mother was born in Kansas you dimwit and no matter where his father was born, it is where the President was born that matters. And he was born in Hawaii.
So time for you to shut up and sit down.
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So, your claim is that Chester Alan Arthur was ineligible to be president, and so we have to rerun the Gilded Age, World War I, Roaring ’20s, Great Depression, World War II, and Cold War, all over again?
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I see that it’s time for me to help Ed “take out the trash” again. (After all, Ed can’t do it by himself. Trash accumulates.)
So…
Dear TOTT,
You might find this an interesting read:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Come on, Skippy. Guess where that’s from? Guess!
If having a foreign-born parent disqualifies President Obama, then the same must be said of the “GWB” of my mother’s era…Herbert Hoover. Mama was a Canuck. And old “genocidal” Jackson? Both parents were Irish. I think there were a number of others.
Hey TOTT, if the Republicans end up nominating Willard Romney for Presidents, are we gonna hear you squawk about that? His Papa was born south of the border, down Mexico way. I’ll bet my left nut the tinfoil hatters and teabaggers don’t make a peep about that.
Gee whiz. That makes me wonder why it’s an issue with Obama. But not with any of the others. Why don’t you enlighten us? I promise not to set you out by the curb until you bless us with your intellectual and Constitutional acumen.
Jim
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Even if I give you every single point. Even if you may be 100% correct on everything you say, there is one thing that you conveniently left out. The Obamanation’s father. The fact that his father is born in Kenya disqualifies him to be POTUS because by virtue of his father’s birth the Obamanation is not a Natural Born Citizen as required by the U.S. Constitution. Nothing else need be proved, disproved or discussed. He is not eligible and qualified to be president. Our founding fathers put that requirement into the Constitution to ensure that a person who is born of parents who are not American citizens would never be able to hold the most powerful position in the land and thereby pose a threat to our nation’s sovereignty. Further, a statutory citizen (bestowed by man’s pen) can never be a “natural born” citizen (bestowed by God/nature). Everything in the Constitution was written with consideration and foresight in order to ensure the continuation of this nation and its democracy for future generations. By overlooking and making excuses for this usurper who is clearly ineligible, you and others like yourself, are doing irreparable damage to the future of this nation that its framers tried to prevent by the formation of the Constitution. If you are lucky enough to be born in this country and love and respect this nation then honor, respect and obey the U.S. Constitution and all that it stands for and reject and revile those who try to usurp our nation and its highest office. Many have fought to preserve the Constitution so that it will always be a nation of the free and brave, and many have clamored and died to reach its shores for those very same freedoms and opportunities that only this nation offers. No one person is greater than the Constitution and the laws of this nation.
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[…] “6 ways challenges to Obama’s citizenship fail” […]
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[…] in a bizarre accounting of everything ever said on the issue (except for the lack of evidence and reasons this case will fail which, oddly, isn’t included in the complaint; everything else is […]
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[…] even some of the BCO’s agree that their wackiness on display hurts their cause. Leo Donofrio, the professional gambler, ranks right near the top of the BCO crazies, and a friendly comment at his blog makes a similar […]
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