"But if the issue is his birthplace/eligibility, then one would have to conclude "Team Obama" was at work quite literally from the moment of his birth. . . . grand conspiracy . . . five decades . . . countless persons”
I disagree. First of all, birthplace and eligibility aren’t the only issues. I am contending that one or more elements of Obama’s purported long form birth certificate is inauthentic and/or intentionally misleading. No one among the general public has been allowed access to he original hand-signed paper copy of his birth certificate. If the original on file in Hawaii does not square precisely with the White House pdf it is not necessary to conclude that a large number of people had to be aware of the discrepancy for a substantial period of time. Family can keep secrets. Is it unheard of even within the this last half century that many Americans have at times reached adulthood before realizing that they were adopted or born out of wedlock or were born gender ambiguous or were born in a different locale or under a name that was regrettably misspelled? You surely can concede that sometimes details are held close to the chest in order to avoid some degree of embarrassment or confusion.
Now I realize you may be tempted to counter at this point with the tiresome: “Well, so long as he’s eligible who cares about trivial details like whether his name was misspelled . . . .” I care, and so should many others because Obama has implied repeatedly that the document he published is the real thing. Even if some technicality exists that exempts him from charges of criminal forgery or perjury or fraud, that doesn’t change the fact that he has openly ridiculed all those who express doubts about the documents. In my opinion, we should seek to uncover any deceit that Obama has employed to his benefit regarding his identity and birth narrative. After all, I fully expect that if Obama were a conservative Republican, many of my progressive counterparts would be hard at work to expose all manner of lies and secrets lurking in his past. If Obama is sustaining a false representation of his birth circumstances, do you think voting citizens should be kept in the dark about that?
On the other hand, suppose birthplace is the particular detail that has been massaged. Can you think of no reason that would motivate parents to submit paperwork in a ruse meant to establish an Hawaiian birth for a child actually born on foreign soil other than a decades-long dastardly plot to ultimately propel the new born infant into the singular American office that requires natural born status by law? Hmm, is there nothing else that might cause parents to desire their child to have paperwork on file establishing his American citizenship free of any need for naturalization or other red-tape later on down the road?
"The only way to do that is by proxy (e.g., a FactCheck.org or Savannah Guthrie type) or to scan it and put it online. But doing that is what invited the cynicism and suspicions in both 2008 and 2012.”
In 2008, the Obama campaign allowed a couple of hipster journalism grads access to “FactCheck” the short form under the strict condition that they fly all the way to Chicago headquarters unaccompanied by anyone with any kind of document expertise to view the goods, provided that they not leave the premises with it. In 2012, Savannah Guthrie was given exclusive access, behind closed doors to lay eyes upon the actual raised seal embossed on the Attorney delivered long form copy at a time that just so happened to coincide with a substantial promotion for her at NBC, while everyone else in the press was forced to settle for color copies and the pdf link. If Obama’s advisors felt that the birth certificate doubters would not be further provoked these measures, then they grossly erred in their calculations.
I understand Hawaii was not ready to let everyone on earth get their grubby hands all over the Stanley Ann hand-signed original, but why could they not have had the foresight to coordinate supervised direct access to the original bound vault copy for forensics experts including at least one who is not the political ally of Obama? And, no, Republican Governor Linda Lingle is not a document expert, and nor does her distant, affirming testimony bear more weight than the question-begging, doubt-inducing testimony of her Democrat gubernatorial successor and Obama fan-boy, Neil Abercombie.
"It's not that hard to explain: the initial efforts to answer the question were met with skepticism and likely both "Team Obama" and the State of Hawaii got annoyed and a bit passive-aggressive.”
And so, in your opinion, government agencies and individuals vying for and holding the highest office in the land should not be checked or held accountable when it comes to toying with a minority segment of the populace that annoys them?
"What possible motivation would they have had for putting down Honolulu if that were not actually his birthplace?”
As to your point about the birth date and place noted on the Indonesian school record, if Barack had actually been born in, say, Kenya, then perhaps the parents were merely trying to maintain consistency with a lie that that had already told in an earlier ruse geared at ensuring Obama had American citizenship--which as I have suggested is a valuable asset to own for many reasons besides eligibility for the office of POTUS. That I think, is a reasonable course of acton if the parents: 1.) had already filled out paperwork in Indonesia asserting an American birthplace for Obama such as upon his initial entry into the country, 2.) had a hunch that returning to the US might be in their future, and/or 3.) if they could see no obvious tangible downside of designating him Hawaiian born. I’m not sure fears of school officials "looking more askance” at the lad would have been taken into consideration. On the contrary, perhaps they felt having a child labeled as U.S. born might motivate the school to handle the boy with greater caution for fear of a more formidable, resourceful retribution that U.S. parentage could potentially command in the case of negligence or wrong doing on the part of the school.
(As a side note, I'll add that Hawaii had not long been a U.S. state at this time, and given his history as a tribally controlled pacific island it's natives may not have been so foreign or thought so askance as a kid hailing from some place like Milwaukee.)
On other hand, as you suggest, perhaps the parents recorded a 8-4-61 birth in Honolulu because that’s actually where and when the child was born. Nevertheless, as I pointed out a few paragraphs ago, birthplace and date are not the only details that might account for HDOH’s bizarre handling of the Obama Birth Certificate and all matters related thereto. However those are the only two data fields in the long form that, in your best case scenario, stand to be confirmed by the Indonesian school record.
"In light of evidence like this, what exactly is "the conspiracy" you hope unravels some day?”
I want to know what has been misrepresented about Obama’s past and for what reasons, and I want to know who was complicit in the deceit and/or cover-up to follow.
True. Though the constitutional issues and political issues often get mixed in ways that leave me wondering if the person commenting appreciates the distinction.
No one among the general public has been allowed access to he original hand-signed paper copy of his birth certificate.
And if some person were to be allowed in to view that document and that person were to emerge and say "what I saw looks just like the WHLFBC," do you think for a moment that would quell the controversy? Or, rather, is it likely that the cries of "the person was threatened or bribed into saying that!" or "they must have created another forgery and showed that as the 'original!'" would immediately follow? Birther history strongly suggests the latter. I strongly doubt granting access to the original would accomplish much.
If the original on file in Hawaii does not square precisely with the White House pdf it is not necessary to conclude that a large number of people had to be aware of the discrepancy for a substantial period of time.
But on what basis is there to suppose a discrepancy? The Indonesian school application supports the Hawaiian place of birth and date. The newspaper birth announcements on August 13, 1961, support the parents being Stanley Ann and BHO, Sr. The State of Hawaii has thrice attested that the information on the WHLFBC matches the information on the original record in their files. And all the supposed "anomalies" in the digital document that gave rise to the initial suspicions have now been shown to be re-creatable via a Xerox Workstation and Mac Preview.
You surely can concede that sometimes details are held close to the chest in order to avoid some degree of embarrassment or confusion.
Of course. Though as I noted in the prior post, if "Team Obama" was conspiring to hide or change some part of the narrative, they were doing so from Day 1. So if the family was trying to hide that the father was someone other than BHO, Sr. (e.g., by creating a false newspaper birth announcement), then there's no reason to think that they told the Hospital or Ha. Dept. of Health anything different. So the paper copy is in all likelihood simply going to state the same things the WHLFBC states (and Hawaii has already said as much).
(And other than the parent(s) not being as stated, or BHO II not being born in the place stated, what other information on the long form certificate could POSSIBLY entail the least bit of embarrassment or concern?)
Now I realize you may be tempted to counter at this point with the tiresome: “Well, so long as he’s eligible who cares about trivial details like whether his name was misspelled . . . .” I care, and so should many others because Obama has implied repeatedly that the document he published is the real thing. Even if some technicality exists that exempts him from charges of criminal forgery or perjury or fraud, that doesn’t change the fact that he has openly ridiculed all those who express doubts about the documents.
Yes, but when Obama was vouching for the document and critics were questoning it, the issue was not misspellings and typos.
If Obama is sustaining a false representation of his birth circumstances, do you think voting citizens should be kept in the dark about that?
No. But I think that "if" not being grounded on other than a "Spidey sense" suspicion (or worse, as others do, grounded on the latest wackadoodle theory) just gives Obama something to play to his political advantage.
Hmm, is there nothing else that might cause parents to desire their child to have paperwork on file establishing his American citizenship free of any need for naturalization or other red-tape later on down the road?
Making clear the child's U.S. citizenship would be a reason, of course. And that motivation would account for both the Hawaii newspaper announcements and the INS records on BHO, Sr., stating he had a son born in Hawaii. But it's hard to presuppose those statements were in the face of contrary information on file with the Department of Health. So the logical conclusion is that the vital records even then indicated Hawaiian birth as well.
So either way you slice it, the argument (and here I have in view one being made to a judge or Congressperson) for compelling access to the Dept of Health paper copy comes up short. Either 1) the newspaper announcements, INS files, Indonesian school application and recent verifications from Hawaii all attest to Obama's Hawaiian birth because Obama really was born there (what I would term the "Occam's Razor" answer) or 2) everyone (including Hawaii) was conspiring from Day 1 to make it look like Obama was born in Hawaii (in which case there's no reason to think the paper copy will tell any different story).
[W]hy could they not have had the foresight to coordinate supervised direct access to the original bound vault copy for forensics experts including at least one who is not the political ally of Obama?
Perhaps because they understand that under our Constitutional system, with its Full Faith & Credit clause, the ultimate authority as to the authenticity and contents of a state-issued record is the issuing-state itself, not "forensic experts." So "it is so, because we say so" is, while perhaps a bit colloquial, the correct answer here.
And so, in your opinion, government agencies and individuals vying for and holding the highest office in the land should not be checked or held accountable when it comes to toying with a minority segment of the populace that annoys them?
We live in a democracy. In this case, where not even a sizeable percentage of Republicans/Conservatives are inclined to chase these issues, the majority rules. And, to the chagrin of those few holdouts, Birthers are not a protected minority.
I want to know what has been misrepresented about Obama’s past and for what reasons, and I want to know who was complicit in the deceit and/or cover-up to follow.
Is your hypothesis (implicitly that there has been misrepresentation and cover-up) falsifiable? And by that I mean what would it take to persuade you that there has been no significant misrepresentation? (And I'm qualifying this with the term "significant" because one can always find something to quibble in a biography, as with any historical account).
I've already suggested my view is that with "Joe Birther" generally the answer is "there is nothing that will peruade me." But I don't wish to lump you in categorically without a chance to answer.