Has Obama - HIMSELF - ever said he was *BORN* in Hawaii, or has he just used his proxies to perpetuate this?
I think we need to take your excellent question a step farther:
What, exactly, do we KNOW, as opposed to what we theorize?
It would be very helpful if someone, perhaps through FReepmail, could compile a list of ONLY those things that are rock-solid facts. Perhaps there could be a second list of “likely, but as yet unproven” data.
Right now, we are peering through a cloud of facts mixed with theory, supposition, and misinformation.. It’s hard to think straight. We might gain perspective by looking at all of it anew.
After reading through this entire thread and the associated links, here are things that nag at me:
— The Dunhams are said to have disliked Barry Sr. There is a quote from Madelyn that he was “strange.” In addition, unconventional as they may have been, they lived in a time when a pregnancy out of wedlock was shameful, as was interracial dating and marriage.
I don’t believe for one minute that they allowed Stanley Ann to live at home while she was pregnant and subject them to disgrace, unless they locked her up. And she doesn’t seem the type who would be hidden willingly. They shipped her — figuratively or literally — off somewhere, and that precludes a Hawaiian birth. Canada? Kenya? How?
— That hasty family departure from Washington State in summer 1960. It makes no sense. There would be a lot of clues to unanswered questions if we could only find out WHY they left Washington so suddenly. They ditched good jobs, a stable neighborhood, Stanley Ann’s plans for U of W, probably friends and neighbors — for what? A new home halfway around the world where they knew no one and the cost of living was higher and they took lower-paying jobs? Doesn’t pass the smell test.
Was one of the Stanleys in trouble? Would Seattle court records from that summer give clues? Was Stanley Ann already pregnant? Is there a FReeper in Chicago who might know Madelyn’s brother?
Do we have anything but 0’s word that he was born on Aug. 4, 1961?
— Does anyone have wills or probate records for Barry Sr., Stanley Armor Dunham, Madelyn Dunham, Stanley Ann Soetoro, Lolo Soetoro?
Didn’t he write a letter to the Kapi’olani Medical Center saying he was born there?
It’s a good question. He may have done, although I can’t immediately put my finger on it. Also, it depends what you make of that mysterious letter to the Hawaiian hospital, posted on the website and used for fundraising, then taken down. Did Obama write that, or not? Still no answer.
What’s more telling to me is the on-line COLB. It was posted by an anonymous third party on Daily Kos, which is not an Obama web site. I’m pretty sure that Obama has NEVER spoken directly about this COLB, or said that it was real, but has allowed his flunkies to do so.
The nearest it came was the assertion that it was genuine on the FightTheSmears website, which was sponsored by Obama but still has deniability—i.e., he could explain that his friends and flunkies were mistaken about it and he forgot to correct them. And, of course, FightTheSmears has now vanished.
Interesting, because Obama has not hesitated to lie about other matters which are less legally dangerous. For instance, he has said that “I was NEVER a Muslim,” which is clearly an outright lie, since he was born a Muslim, adopted a Muslim, trained as a Muslim, studied the Qran, went to the mosque for prayers, etc. He could have said “I am not a Muslim,” and there would be no way to disprove that. But religion is a private matter, in modern thinking a matter of opinion not fact, so he was safe in saying that.
He was NOT an East-West Center grantee, though he did associate with them as part of the group at Atherton Hall on the campus. Not being an East-West Center grantee meant that he was living on a very small stipend without assistance from the US government. Later there was some assistance as "fallout money" in 1960, but still it was very little. In essence, Obama lived in poverty. An article by Michael Dobbs in The Washington Post, states that Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, provided most of the financial support in Obama Sr's early years in the United States, according to the Tom Mboya archives at Stanford University. According to a letter on file in the Mboya papers at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, "most" of Obama Sr.'s early expenses in the United States were covered by an international literacy expert named Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, who had traveled widely in Kenya. Kirk wrote to Mboya in May 1962 to request additional funds to "sponsor Barack Obama for graduate study, preferably at Harvard." She said she would "like to do more" to assist the young man but had two stepchildren ready for college. (Source: Wikipedia and Washington Post.)
This is the first that I've read these names. Does anybody know anything about them? Is this a credible site (source)?
I myself heard Obama say that he was born in Hawaii. He stated that around the time he took office. He didn’t convince me.
All I know about this is that there are secondary personal documents concerning Obama, i. e., other than birth records, which state his POB as Honolulu, HI. One of these would be his Illinois law license application.
A standard reference book, "The Almanac of American Politics," contains biographical data of every US senator and congressman in the country. Since Obama was elected to the US Senate, his entry has shown Honolulu, HI to be his POB. I wouldn't know how the publishers obtain that data; I'd presume they ask the staffers, who get the info from the senator or congressman himself to pass along to the publisher.
But perhaps the best piece of evidence that Obama said he was born in Hawaii, comes from newspapers stories trumpeting his selection as editor of the Harvard Law Review. Some of these specifically state he was born in Hawaii. (I believe there may be a New York Times article explicitly stating that.) Since the writers of these articles obviously did personal interviews with Obama for these stories, one can intuit that the source for the place of birth information was, in all likelihood, Obama himself.
Never heard him actually say so, no.
The one place he may have, would be in 'Dreams From My Father' - written while his mother was still alive IIIRC. If the question of his PLACE of birth is NOT mentioned in that book, then I imagine who-ever wrote it had good reason to leave it out.
Who has a copy?
“Has Obama - HIMSELF - ever said he was *BORN* in Hawaii, or has he just used his proxies to perpetuate this?”
The question is several hours old and this response may be redundant:
In re Hollister v Soetoro, O’s January 26, 2009 Motion to Dismiss at Footnote #1 states:
“President Obama has publicly produced a certified copy of a birth certificate showing that he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu Hawaii.”
Notwithstanding the stated document a) was not a “birth certificate” but a subordinate document of no conclusive value that b) was later found by experts to have been significantly altered, this statement representing O was born in Hawaii was made solely for the purpose of refuting plaintiff’s assertion that O was not born in Hawaii.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11514165/Hollister-v-Soetoro-Motion-to-Dismiss-Plaintiffs-Complaint
Didn’t he mention this in his book?
I am sure he has also mentioned it several times on the campaign trail.
ex animo
davidfarrar