Kenyan Branch of Obama’s Family Ordered Silent

A Semi-News/Semi-Satire from AzConservative ^ | 26 Dec 2008 | John Semmens

[John Semmens]

President-Elect Barack Obama’s relatives in Kenya have been silenced by government order.

“Though we are quite proud of the ascendance of our ‘native son’ to the presidency of the United States, we are, at the request of President Obama, requiring that the members of his family residing in Kenya desist from any further comments regarding the personal matter of his birth,” said government spokesman Fabul Attesto. “There are, we understand, technical issues that militate against an open attribution of the origins of this great man.”

Attesto promised that “a more robust telling of the Obama legend will be forthcoming at the appropriate time.”

[aruanan]

Because of the second comma, the entire sentence can be construed to apply only to persons alive at the time of the adoption of the constitution.

No, because then it would mean that no one could be eligible to the Office of the President who wasn't a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. That's clearly impossible because it wouldn't allow for the election of a president after a relatively few number of years from its adoption. And it's not referring to a third type of candidate by default that means everyone else born anywhere else in the world after the adoption of the Constitution, whether a citizen or not or just someone who happened to want to run for the office. They were funky with spelling and punctuation back then, but they weren't stupid.

Should I send this to Obama? Or to the Supreme Court Justices?

Sure, if you want to make a fool of yourself by showing off an example of the fallacy of emphasis.

[aruanan]

Pretty funny how a semi-satire can come so close to being the truth.

[Tellurian]

The implication would be there is no citizenship requirement for those born after 1776, not that no one could qualify.

It may be fallacy, but it’s not much different from the second amendment argument that an armed militia does not include citizen ownership of guns. (”A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”). That argument hasn’t worked, I know. Maybe you can explain why.