Posted on 12/30/2016 2:05:24 AM PST by grundle
Barack Obama was born in the U.S.
According to this 2012 article from ABC News, in 1991 Obama’s own book publisher printed a paper pamphlet which said that Obama was “born in Kenya.” An employee of the publisher said that it was a “fact checking error” of hers that caused this to happen, and that the false information did not come from Obama. The bolding is mine:
‘Born in Kenya’: Obama’s Literary Agent Misidentified His Birthplace in 1991
By Dylan Stableford
May 18, 2012
A possible source of the so-called “birther” issue–or at least a potential cause of the rumors that have dogged President Barack Obama–has been identified.
Obama’s former literary agency misidentified his birthplace as Kenya while trying to promote the then-Harvard Law grad as an author in 1991.
According to a promotional booklet produced by the agency, Acton & Dystel, to showcase its roster of writers, Obama was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”
Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients.
“This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me–an agency assistant at the time,” Goderich wrote in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. “There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”
A copy of the booklet was published on Breitbart.com, under the headline: ” Obama’s Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: ‘Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.’ It was part of the “vetting” of the president the site’s late founder, Andrew Breitbart, had promised.
Here’s Obama’s full bio from the 1991 brochure:
“Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation. He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago’s South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Breitbart.com published a lengthy disclaimer with the brochure, saying it does not believe Obama was born outside of the United States:
Andrew Breitbart was never a “Birther,” and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of “Birtherism.” In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.
Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama’s ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him.
It is for that reason that we launched “The Vetting,” an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates)–not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences.
It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below–one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review.
It is evidence–not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.
Despite that rationale, the publication will no doubt fuel “birthers” who refuse to believe Obama was born in the United States.
In a follow-up post, Breitbart.com noted that Obama was listed as being born in Kenya on the Dyster & Goderich website until April 2007, “just two months after then-Senator Obama declared his campaign for the presidency.”
Snopes put this picture of the pamphlet on its website:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/booklet.asp
Claim: A 1991 literary client list promotional booklet identified Barack Obama as having been born in Kenya.
True
In 2008, NPR published this article, which claimed that Obama was born in Kenya. Again, the bolding is mine:
Trial and Triumph: Stories Out Of Africa
by Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
October 9, 2008
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR’s Africa-based correspondent, tells why her beat has proved one of the most interesting this year.
She discusses the stories that have been painful and devastating for many nations on the continent such as the violent political fights that have led to power-sharing deals.
She also describes the stories that have been exciting, including the U.S. presidential race of Kenyan-born Sen. Barack Obama.
And how does a publishing professional make such a "fact checking error" out of thin air? Goderich's "explanation" is not credible.
This has been around a long time.
There was a video of his grandmother talking about how proud she had been to have witnessed his birth in a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. Maybe she was reinforcing his myth? Kenya gov’t. cut off media contact with her. It doesn’t matter, his mother was a US citizen. I believe his brother, who says Barry Sr. wasn’t Jr’s. father, he was the son of Frank Marshall Davis, his mother’s lover. Love to see a DNA test.
For the sake of the country, I hope President Trump DEMANDS the release of all Obama’s records soon after his inaugauration. I am not so concerned about the birth certificate, but I would love to see the school records from Occidental, Columbia and Harvard.
The sooner Obama is discredited, the better.
As far as I know, this statement was never challenged by anyone in a position to pin down an answer. If the bad information didn't come from Obama, where did it come from? A "fact checking error" acknowledges only that the bad information wasn't caught. It doesn't explain the origin.
“There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more. Hand to God. You have to believe me. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”
Stanley Ann Dunham’s citizenship is irrelevant, because she had not lived in the U.S. long enough to transmit citizenship. If BHO was not born on U.S. soil, he is an illegal alien to this day.
There were at one time a whole slew of magazine articles out there that referred to Obama as the “African-born senator from Illinois”.
At one time it served his purpose to let people believe it, whether it was true or not, because it gave him an exotic air, it made him seem more interesting. So somehow a number of magazine writers and book publishers got the “mistaken” impression he was foreign-born.
Then later, once it no longer served his purpose, you’re the idiot for believing unfounded internet rumors.
I thought his Harvard Law Review bio said he was an exchange student from Kenya, and the bio released when he ran for the Illinois state legislature said he was born there, too.
Standing confusion: There was a Barack Hussein Obama, Junior, born in a Kenyan hospital, of a mother who was NOT Stanley Ann Dunham. The one born somewhere on US soil (may have been Washington State, not Hawaii), was more properly Barack Hussein Obama II, and even that may have been a total misnomer. There is no evidence that Barack Hussein Obama, Senior, was the genetic father of the Current Occupant. There may be a distinct genetic bond between Stanley Ann Dunham and the Current Occupant, but it may not be as people think. Not mother to son, but as half-siblings, with daddy Stanley Dunham and an as yet unidentified woman of African descent, who had the child out of wedlock, and Stanley Ann faked the pregnancy, which explains the capability to move quickly immediately after the time of the implied birth.
Dittos on the DNA test.
Fact Checking = The left’s way of making a lie a fact.
The 'debate' logic is flawed here in my opinion. The question isn't "did the translator translate the grandmother's statement correctly." The real absurdity here is to think that his Kenyan grandmother could possibly have been at the Hawaii hospital to see him in the first place. If the comment about being there is correct and not 'mistranslated' then it MUST have been in Kenya - translation error or not.
Yes, that is problematic, and McRae seemed to pick up on that immediately as he was talking to the translator. I would like to see a transcript of the full conversation (from the longer clip) that clearly distinguishes what the grandmother said from what the translator said.
Easy. Sometimes publishers like use a 79”x 54” World Map and throw darts at it to pick a random country. /sarc
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