Posted on 11/15/2008 6:48:02 PM PST by palmer
It's apparent that a combination of fervent believers and a small number of psychopaths and/or infiltrators have dominated the birth certificate discussion. The early evidence was in their favor and everyone should have been skeptical of the low res images on Kos, smears and politifact. The new evidence is not and is not being addressed objectively.
But photo #5 (and some of the others) is a genuine photograph of an artifact. It was not created in photoshop. That doesn't mean photoshop was not involved. A plausible set of steps is
1. Scan a real COLB including the border
2. Import into photoshop and change the text to Obama's text
3. Print the result onto the cross hatched paper (could be forged separately)
4. Obtain a embossing seal and apply it to the printout 5. Fold it as if it came from an envelope and display it to the factcheck photographer.
Another plausible scenario is someone in the Hawaii office did all the forging but on the official equipment and using the official seal. Another possibility is someone stole a seal and sold it to a forger. It is certainly possible for a forger to make a seal using the right equipment (probably a laser etcher).
The Kenya trip meme seemed to turn into an established fact in early July when proposed by null and void and properly ridiculed. Even into November null and void can only repeat her hypothesis (a honeymoon) apparently unwilling or unable to embellish it further.
Polarik surrounds himself with a number of true believers and useful idiots. The useful idiots are the ones who validate or praise his analysis while obviously not knowing anything about it. The true believers have convinced themselves that Obama was not born in Honolulu and are unable to evaluate the evidence objectively.
In their favor, the true believers have established that Obama has potential Indonesian citizenship (courtesy of Soetoro) as well as potential Kenyan citizenship (courtesy of Obama Sr). These are true regardless of where Obama was born. For the former the Kenyan citizenship would have to be activated by Obama. For the latter, Soetoro would have had to apply to make Obama an Indonesian citizen, it does not happen automatically via adoption.
The bottom line for Polarik is he has yet to address the certificate linked above. He has promised to do this for weeks now and is instead disseminating and repeating his various diatribes against Obama. My guess based on his past behavior is that he will release a rehash of the evidence against the old scan (Kos, smears, politifact) with a bit of new verbiage against the factcheck photos. He will properly point out some oddities in some of the photos while ignoring the obvious salient features in the decent photos such as number 5.
He and I have already argued about the seal (embossing) in number 5 and he claims it is a perfect circle (therefore forged). I showed that it wasn't http://i433.photobucket.com/albums/qq51/palmer2/circle.jpg and he replied with a very similar result except he used some edge detection first. He obviously just fools with some tools, but doesn't obtain any useful results. When it comes to image analysis he is a dabbler, not an expert.
With cover from his defenders he establishes a "sensitive" personality claiming that he is being ruthlessly attacked. He says that as a result he will stop posting on the certificate issue when he is done with his final writeup. I don't know if that's a real sensitivity or faked, but even if it is faked there are thousands more that will step into his shoes if he disappears.
That thread and others contain useful nuggets about other Obama problems. There are alternative threads that speak to real evidence although some of those get beaten down by the Polarik army. Polarik's followers also use Freepmail to spread gossip about posters like myself and allegedly (according to them) posted about me on another forum.
That is all good. The more publicity I get on this particular issue, the better. But I remain concerned that FreeRepublic will have the appearance of a conspiracy site because only a rather intensive conspiracy could produce the evidence photographed by Factcheck.
I am also concerned that Factcheck and others might be deliberately planting poor quality evidence in an attempt to hook in the Polariks of the world and their followers. That would not necessarily require a conspiracy although I admit it has the flavor of one. It is to the liberal opposition's benefit to keep as many people on false trails as possible not just to waste their time but to portray them as unhinged. That result was detrimental in the last election and will be detrimental in 2010 and 2012.
IMO of course.
Doesn’t it seem a little odd to you that the future Commander-in-Chief refuses to show his birth certificate?
Bottom line! If Obama was born in Hawaii, he should present a birth certificate and end the debate. Because this has not happened, he must be hiding something!!!!
All this can be solved by the release of a few documents, maybe just one document. I would be satisfied even those documents were released to a panel of sufficiently qualified independent judges.
But the COLB linked above states his birthplace as Honolulu which would not have been done if he wasn't born there.
You could always threaten to leave if you don’t get your way. Or there’s the rational route of not clicking on the threads you don’t like.
There is an audio tape that you can listen to on Youtube that is suppose to be a taped conversation with the Grandma. It is horrible sound quality on the African side.
The grandma insists that she was present when he was born but the grandson who is doing the translating said NO he was born in the US. There is another translator involved in the deal. It was some kind of minister doing the call. He brought up the place of birth - perhaps as a trap- by saying he wanted to visit the birthplace of Obama while he was visiting her in africa.
True, but the President elects original birth certificate not being made available to the general public is kinda a big deal.
Conspiracy sites have one direction and goal. Here at FR stuff that is just over the hill is sorted quick and that which may or may not be viable is debunked or authenticated and debated. That’s what makes FR great and the reason it survives. Individuals make and break each thread with both amateurs and subject matter experts on almost every subject as well as just folks who are thinking out of the box at times. Good or bad.......
No worries about FR’s validity and ethics here...
Stay safe !
Why does he pull out a forged COLB instead of showing a real Birth Certificate (BC).
Assume it was a real COLB. It would not prove anything but he creates a fake COLB. I guess forging a COLB is easier then trying to forge the more detailed BC.
The fact that he tried to prove he was an American by displaying a obvious forged COLB leads me to believe he was born in Kenya.
People bitching about us talking about this subject are probably O-Bots. My message to them is G F Yourself.
That is a laser printout from the db or a fake, never could exactly follow polarik's reasoning on that, but it is the vault certificate which would be different and has more info, would have been typewritten, that has not been released.
His Indonesian citizenship or non-citizenship is also problematical and needs to be resolved.
Some of it could be conspirational at this point; how are we supposed to know? Unless this is fake, here is the latest lawsuit out of how many now, 11?
He can stop us wing nuts by letting three experts look at the certificate. Then he can brag about what he did to us. Simple.
We have the right to know that the candidates are qualified for the office.
Once is enough! I haven’t seen evidence about the Granny’s testimony except the recording alleged by Berg.
Nice piece. However, all Obamugbe has to do is just show the original to the repsective parties.
I have an original birth certificate...has the hospital name and the signature of the physician, who supervised my birth in 1962. Then there is the certificate of live birth issued by the municipality where I was born. They are competely different documents and serve different purposes. The COLB is my citizenship document. the original, verifies natural born.
Ditto for my children born Dec 2006 and Aug 2008.
It is a simple question.
My child HAD to produce a birth certificate before he could play little league.
Anyone running for POTUS should also have to produce a birth certificate. THe one his campaign produced was a forgery.
Simple. He should produce it. Period. No more discussion.
Although he may have been required to register, how would his failure to register preclude him from being president? (Is there a penalty such as barring him from all federal jobs?)
Fools bait is when you think his behavior is that of an innocent person.
Fools bait is when you constantly let politicans lie and get away with it.
Absolutely and we have drawn numerous good new posters with debates like these. I hope I don't piss them off so much that the good ones go away.
You know, if this was George Bush, the mainstream media would have been on this story like stink on dung.
Bet a person getting hired at McDonalds, Wal-mart, or H. & R. Block, gets more scrutiny than Obama has gotten to be the President of the U.S.
There is a PDF file of the Keyes complaint that was posted last night (actually very early this morning EST). That document appears professionally drafted and well thought out. I would recommend reading it before labeling folks who have legitimate questions that remain unanswered.
The Berg suit was tossed on a technicality (standing to sue), not on its merits.
Post 23 in this thread correctly points out there are multiple problems that Obama needs to address, not just his COLB.
The suit does not appear to be frivolous.
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