Some thoughts from Jonah Goldberg:
The question of which scenario is more plausible is neither academic nor trivial. This summer, a host of columnists, commentators, and activists, seemingly taking their cues from a White House and DNC public-relations offensive, declared that the rise of the “birthers” was a fatal indictment of modern conservatism and the Republican party. The refusal of the birthers to give up their cockamamie theory was proof that the GOP had succumbed to the “paranoid style.” Indeed, according to some liberal commentators, the birthers were the potential wellspring for a nascent Nazi movement in America. Never mind that the vast majority of leading Republicans and conservatives — from Newt Gingrich to Ann Coulter — rejected the birthers categorically.
Fast-forward to the last week or so. Van Jones, an avowed “Communist” and passionate supporter of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, was a truther par excellence. Contrary to many reports, he didn’t merely sign 911truth.org’s petition in 2004, he helped organize one of the first truther groups as early as 2002.
When these and other revelations came to light, Jones resigned his post as White House “green jobs czar.”
The reaction from much of the liberal establishment has been fascinating, hypocritical, and deeply creepy.
Not out of character for them, unfortunately.
What he provided is what the State of Hawaii provides if you go ask for a replacement.
As it happens, my Hawaii-born wife could not find her original birth certificate this summer, so she wrote to the Hawaii Department of Health for a replacement, and got back a Certificate of Live Birth that looks just like Obama’s. I suppose I should be especially suspicious about her citizenship, since Hawaii wasn’t even a state when she was born….
I will repeat so you can get it through your thick racists skull “Ali did not release the racial breakdowns for the the South”.
97% of black voters polled nationwide said Obama was born in the U.S. 87% of Latino voters said the same. Even if every single one of the “No” or “Not Sure” blacks and Latinos were in the South, it would still leave most white Southerners doubting Obama’s birthplace, not to mention most white Southern Republicans.
You are old fashion slime ball racists.
You two are the worst type of people in this world. You act and believe that you are better then everybody else but when it comes down to it you are nothing more then lying, cheating carpet baggers.
Ah, nothing like a real clash of ideas!
Jim, whenever you want to bring actual ideas, we can have a real debate. But if you keep on bringing the same tired ad-homs you’ve overplayed to the point of dilution, then don’t be surprised if the resulting “debate” (read, fisking) goes less to your liking.
Oops, I wrote “logic employed to argue that Saddam still had WMDs” when I (obviously) meant the opposite.
Indeed! I look to the skeptical South for leadership on Obama, Reagan, 9/11, and that moon landing malarkey!
(emphasis added)
Well, Houston, Cape Canaveral, and Huntsville are in the South…
97% of black voters polled nationwide said Obama was born in the U.S. 87% of Latino voters said the same. Even if every single one of the “No” or “Not Sure” blacks and Latinos were in the South, it would still leave most white Southerners doubting Obama’s birthplace, not to mention most white Southern Republicans.
Heh, so do you have an opinion on why blacks nationwide have a much higher belief than Latinos?
@Bob, Strictly speaking, “born in the usa” does not imply “citizen” (natural-born, or not).
Sure, but it’s irrelevant to this case.
How do we know that Obama didn’t renounce his citizenship?
A total red herring.
@Jim, Ah, nothing like a real clash of ideas!
Ah, nothing like a hypocritical troll getting up on his high horse after his work is done.
It occurs to me that if Obama renounced his citizenship, there would be a written record of it. I wonder if this happens infrequently enough that the government doesn’t actually keep track?
Interestingly (but off-topic), while briefly researching the subject, I learned that US citizens can not formally renounce their citizenship while in the United States. This seems like a rather odd lack of freedom!
See travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html
It occurs to me that if Obama renounced his citizenship, there would be a written record of it. I wonder if this happens infrequently enough that the government doesn’t actually keep track?
Bob, why do you continue to babble about this? It makes you look even more idiotic than the birthers.
The “birthers” weren’t founded by some gomer channeling space aliens through the CB radio in the cab of his pickup out back of his double-wide trailer; Obama’s grandmother was quoted as saying she had been present at his birth in Kenya. LATER it was said that she’d recanted or “been misquoted” but the damage was done: No reasonable person is going to believe Obama’s denials w/o documentary proof.
OK, his staff came up with a “Certificate of Live Birth” printed in 1992 saying that a birth certificate had been issued for him in the state of Hawaii in 1962. That seems to be good enough for most people…except that the COLB isn’t the birth certificate but only a summary of computer records. It’s possible under Hawaiian law to get a substitute birth certificate from a hospital w/o actually being born there – the mother claims home birth; a substitute birth certificate is issued. In the original grandmother’s story Obama’s mother had flown back to the States the day after his birth to do just that. So the COLB doesn’t really prove anything; it could have happened either way.
The only way to know is to look at the original birth certificate and that’s the basis of the so-called “birther” movement. Hawaii won’t release Obama’s original, “vault-copy” w/o his permission and thusfar he hasn’t seen fit to give it. That’s what’s kept the “birther” movement alive. Chances are releasing the vault copy would settle the argument in his favor so the real question is why the heck won’t he do so?
The most likely theory is that his people think they can use the birthers to make the GOP look bad so the longer they drag this out the better Obama does with moderates and Democrats. Personally I don’t think so. Do man-on-the-street interviews, first showing a picture of Obama and then ask them about the birther controversy. The only ones offended are those down on their knees kissing his picture. The rest of us have reactions ranging from curiosity about why he won’t release his original birth certificate or indifference. His poll numbers have been falling like a rock since he took office so I don’t think “birtherism” has been providing much cushion. In the end it just makes him look either conniving or arrogant and out of touch, take your pick.
What do I think personally about this? The “native born” clause was put in the US Constitution because 85 years earlier Parliament had accidentally put a Prussian-born prince who didn’t even speak English on the throne of England via a poorly-thought-out succession law. The Founding Fathers didn’t want the Presidency going to some foreigner either by dunderheads in Congress or a well-moneyed campaign by some foreign prince for the job. I agree with this and think that to preserve the integrity of the process each applicant should provide, IN ADVANCE, original documentation (ie., a birth certificate) proving eligibility or give some good reason why no such document exists. Then let the people decide when they go to the voting booth if they believe him or not. After the Electoral votes are counted it’s too late to bring it up: We’re stuck with the guy for the next 4 years (barring impeachment for perjury; good luck with that). I’m annoyed – actually, angry, that the press was carefully incurious about the matter until after the election. They made a conscious/unconscionable decision to grease the skids for Obama and did everything but electioneer for him thru Election day. I’d kind of like the birthers to prove Obama is a Kenyan just to watch them choke on it.
Orion, that was a pretty interesting comment. It inspired me to read this article:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories
(Click on my name to read it)
The wikipedia article seem pretty comprehensive, particularly (as with all wikipedia articles) if you follow and evaluate the sources listed for each claim.
In your comment, you say “It’s possible under Hawaiian law to get a substitute birth certificate from a hospital w/o actually being born there – the mother claims home birth; a substitute birth certificate is issued.”
The wikipedia article refutes this claim. It says the following:
—
”
Opponents asserted that Hawaiian officials had not explicitly addressed the fact that Obama was born in Hawaii, and pointed to a provision of Hawaiian law that permits the issuance of certifications of live birth to those born outside the state or even outside the country. However, the suggestion that this could have applied to Obama was rejected by Janice Okubo, director of communications for the Hawaii Department of Health: “If you were born in Bali, for example, you could get a certificate from the state of Hawaii saying you were born in Bali. You could not get a certificate saying you were born in Honolulu. The state has to verify a fact like that for it to appear on the certificate.”[28] On July 27, 2009, Fukino issued a statement explicitly stating she has “seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai’i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai’i and is a natural-born American citizen.”[29] [30]
”
—
There is much more in the article, and each of those numbers (eg [29]) is a clickable link to a source you can read and evaluate for yourself. [29] in particular is the full statement by Hawaii State Department of Health Director Fukino, the one who says she saw the original vital records on file in Hawaii.
Orion, the wikipedia article also leads to the following article, which discusses the quote by Obama’s grandmother. Her comments are on tape, and in the article below, you can listen to the tape for yourself.
“www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/72794.html”
(click on my name to visit)
Here’s a excerpt from the article:
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Many birthers, such as Pennsylvania attorney Phil Berg, allege that Obama was born in Kenya and that his Kenyan grandmother is on tape saying that she was present at his birth there.
Yet the tape circulated on the Internet doesn’t actually say that — and the full tape actually contradicts it.
On the tape, the woman thought to be Sarah Obama is prodded by a Berg ally who’s a self-described bishop from the U.S. to affirm that Obama was born in Kenya.
“Was she present when he was born in Kenya?” Bishop Ron McRae asks in the taped phone call.
“She says yes she was. She was present when Obama was born,” says the voice of translator.
The tape ends abruptly.
Despite Berg’s assertions, the response didn’t actually confirm a birth in Kenya. Moreover, a longer version of the tape shows the elder Obama decidedly denying a Kenyan birth immediately after the first tape was cut off.
“I would like to go by the place, the hospital where he was born. Can you tell me where he was born? Was he born in Mombasa?” McRae is heard asking.
“Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America,” the translator says after talking to the woman.
“I thought he was born in Kenya,” McRae asks again.
“He was born in America, not in Mombasa,” says the response. Another response later says, “Obama in Hawaii. Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii.”
“Orion, that was a pretty interesting comment. It inspired me to read this article:
en.wikipedia.org…”
Wikipedia is not an original source, sorry (you do know it’s an automatic “F” for a college student to cite Wikipedia in a term paper, right?). Neither is Factcheck, Snopes, KoS, Newsmax, or Lyndon LaRouch. Simply because you read somewhere on the Internet that Obama was born in Kenya/Obama was born in Hawaii/Obama was born on Rigel VI and bleeds green doesn’t matter. What matters is the process, verifiable thereof. I know there’s a tape of Granny talking through a translator: God only knows if the tape has been “tweaked” or not. Birhters are paranoid if Obama is a “natural born citizen”: I’m paranoid that we don’t have a trustworthy process for proving qualifications beyond, “Well, I read on WIKIPEDIA…!”
I also guarantee that if we don’t straighten this out then 15, 20 years from now there’ll be a Republican candidate w/o a birth certificate and the same people defending Obama’s citizenship will be howling for Congressional investigations. If Chrissie Matthews is still around he’ll be babbling about the tingling in his leg telling him that there’s something “fishy” about a Republican who won’t prove he was born in the US or that he’s not a clone of the original grown in a test tube in Brazil. Kos will be accusing his VP of not really being pregnant but instead claiming his pregnant daughter’s kid is really his own – oh, wait: That’s just KoS; never mind. I forgot they specialize in insane ravings…
Each wikipedia article is different – some are extremely authoritative, some are not. And each wikipedia article is sourced with clickable links which you can follow. But moreover, for this sort of discussion to be worth pursuing, you should respond to the specific claims, which have nothing to do with Wikipedia.
1) Read what Fukino had to say. Do you think Fukino is lying? Read what Okubo had to say. Do you think Okubo does not understand Hawaiian law?
2) Listen to the tape. The tape seems to be the basis for your skepticism about Obama in the first place. And yet, if you listen to the tape, you can understand how the misunderstanding happened. The tape, with its bad audio and garbled translation, makes it obvious how the initial misunderstanding happened in a way that a written article can’t easily convey. If you listen to the tape, you can hear the grandmother explaining over and over that she was not present at Obama’s birth, and that Obama was born in the Hawaii. McRae asks again and again, and Obama’s grandmother clarifies again and again.
I want to be as clear as possible: Wikipedia is not an original source but Wikipedia is valuable in that it links to original sources. Click on a bracketed number, and you get an original source, such as Fukino’s statements and the tape itself.
By the way, Philip Berg, the guy behind the tape, is also a “truther” who called on world leaders to arrest Bush for the crime of 9/11.
Source: http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/philip-berg-seeking-the-truth-of-911
See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Berg
Regarding the other feature conspiracy theory, I’d like to see a demographic breakdown of truthers. Would we see them disproportionately represented by certain geographic regions or ethnicities? Would Kos dare to commission such a poll?
Wikipedia is not an original source, sorry (you do know it’s an automatic “F” for a college student to cite Wikipedia in a term paper, right?).
Orion,
You have to understand that Bob thinks the UK is a “Republic”, so you cannot expect him to understand that wikipedia is not authoritative.
As an aside, I think the success of Agitprop has rendered the “natural born citizen” clause moot. TBH, many of the most patriotic folks I know are immigrants from the former USSR or its satellites. I’d take any of them over someone raised in a moonbat cocoon like Obama.
Wikipedia may not be authoritative, but following the references in the articles can provide an authoritative source. It doesn’t really matter, anyway – conspiracy theories have a way of becoming impervious to facts. If Obama came out tomorrow and provided an original birth certificate from the archives, there’d be people claiming that it was actually a forgery, citing the delay in releasing it as time necessary to produce a high quality fake. Obama’s the president, and will almost certainly remain president until at least 2013. It would be far more effective for his opponents to work on electing a Republican congress next year to provide an effective legislative opposition than to waste time obsessing over the provenance of a birth certificate.
As a final note before I move on (no pun intended) from this, consider that to be a “birther” all you have to believe is that a politician would lie about his qualifications to become President. To be a “truther” you have to believe that the professional investigators who sifted the rubble at the WTC, Pentagon, and Flight 93 crash sites were part of a conspiracy to commit mass murder.
A single self-sufficient voice on NBC within the Television show. This individual includes a definitely hard immigration scheme. The master managed to graduate around the Harvard Collage. At present he provides their a single Broadcast Show. He couldn’t like the actual U . s citizens us president.