Really?
Posted on 12/30/2010 9:24:48 AM PST by Kaslin
I believe that the president was born in Hawaii. But am I the only curious cat who thinks it's rather odd for that state's newly-elected governor, plus Chris Matthews of MSNBC, both liberal Democrats, to have just forced the "Birther" issue to rise again?
Am I the only curious cat in America who thinks it rather odd that the newly elected governor of Hawaii — a liberal Democrat — has just forced the “Birther” issue to rise again?
Not only has Hawaii’s governor-elect, Neil Abercrombie, just announced that he is on a mission to bury the “Birther” issue, but Chris “Obama-sends-a-tingle-up-my-leg” Matthews now wants to know why President Obama doesn’t release the darned document and put this relentlessly pursuing ghost to rest once and for all.
If Abercrombie and Matthews were utterly desperate Republican operatives, hog-tied to a sinking political ship, I might understand the newly reincarnated brouhaha. But both these men are as-liberal-as-liberal-gets Democrats. And Republicans, at this juncture, are anything but desperate. They are set to begin the 112th Congress with the clout of a mid-term election landslide not seen since 1938.
So, what on earth would motivate a governor-elect with more real problems than any sane man would want on his plate to go fiddling around in an issue which for all intents and purposes is as dead as a doornail?
It simply makes no sense in the real world, where real unemployment still hovers at double-digits, where the president is about to face a real hostile Congress, and in an atmosphere where the season’s holly- jolly spirit is about to melt faster than snow on the ground in Atlanta.
If you ask me, this folderol of reincarnating the “Birther” issue by two prominent liberal Democrats just smacks of orchestrated political psy-ops. Hoping to get a prominent and public rise out of Republicans and/or conservative pundits, these two utterly loyal-to-the-president guys — Abercrombie and Matthews — are simply creating a diversion in the hopes that their party can regain some of the traction it’s lost over the past 2 years.
Now, I’ve never fit the standard, press-defined definition of a “Birther.” I do believe that the president was born in Hawaii. I’ve written only one column on the “Birther” controversy and that was back in August 2009. As I opined back then, the whole controversy has legs because of the complete dearth of documentation regarding this president. No presidential candidate of the past 30 years has been permitted the level of secrecy and non-disclosure that President Obama received.
To date the following are all undisclosed:
1) 1961 long-form, original, signed birth certificate
2) Marriage license between Obama’s father (Barak Sr.) and mother (Stanley Ann Dunham) — not found, not released
3) Obama’s baptism records — sealed
4) Obama’s adoption records — sealed
5) Records of Obama’s and his mother’s repatriation as U.S. citizens on return from Indonesia — not found, not released
6) Name change (Barry Sotero to Barack Hussein Obama) records — not found, not released
7) Noelani Elementary School (Hawaii) — not released
8 ) Punahou School financial aid or school records — not released
9) Occidental College financial aid records — not released.
10) Columbia College records — not released
11) Columbia senior thesis — not released
12) Harvard Law School records — not released
13) Obama’s law client list — sealed
14) Obama’s files from career as an Illinois state senator — sealed
15) Obama’s record with Illinois State Bar Association — sealed
16) Obama’s medical records — not released
17) Obama’s passport records — not released
In my opinion — as a civics-minded citizen — Obama’s as yet unreleased original long-form birth certificate from the state of Hawaii is merely the tip of a mysterious iceberg when it comes to the 44th president of the United States. Any journalist worth an ounce of salt would be curious as to why any presidential candidate would conceal nearly every documented item from his own past. Obviously, America does not have many remaining curious journalists.
For the entire campaign season of ’07-’08, the nation witnessed hordes of “journalists” hot on the trail of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe costs, her final pregnancy and childbirth, and her unwed daughter’s pregnancy. We American voters were privy in ‘08 to seeing the complete, suicidal destruction of a once-heralded media enterprise. Rather than take the responsible position of delving into the very, very important and pertinent non-disclosures of a presidential candidate, these media buffoons chose to lampoon the lady from Alaska with adolescent-styled mischief. The campaign coverage was so bad, so childish, so without real substance that on election day, voters still knew next to nothing of substance about the man who would be their next president.
Which brings us back to the original question as to why on earth the Democrat duo of Abercrombie and Matthews would want to raise the all-but-dead “Birther” issue. The country has beyond-huge problems on its plate and Obama has two years to go before his reelection bid.
As much as I detest Chris Matthews, he makes a very salient point, when he asks why on earth the president hasn’t just released the darned document. Barack Obama has been the defendant in more than a dozen eligibility lawsuits since 2008. He has employed legal counsel to answer every one of them; lawyers do not serve free for millionaires like Obama. The cost of supplying the long-form, original birth certificate, which has been said by many officials to be on file in Hawaii, is approximately $15. No matter how one does arithmetic, $15 is bound to be less than Obama has paid lawyers to prevent the release of said document.
Now, we have the governor-elect of Hawaii saying that he will take pains to have state law revised which will enable him to legally release “certain details” contained on the original birth certificate — presumably prior to the 2012 presidential election. It is possible, I suppose, that there are details on that birth certificate which belie the Obama narrative, details that might prove a substantive embarrassment of some sort.
A president elected on the strength of a narrative must protect that narrative at all costs. Abercrombie and Matthews are merely carrying water for the Obama narrative and attempting to divert the public’s attention from more substantive issues, namely the remaining dearth of real background data on the 44th president of the United States.
Journalism certainly isn’t what it used to be. Nor is it even a shade of what it’s supposed to be. Shame is too mild a word.
For all the modern press notables that slam Sarah Palin’s lack of intellectual curiosity, there isn’t a single American journalist who has demonstrated even a speck of the stuff when it comes to Barack Obama. It’s a purely disgusting state of affairs.
Have you?
No.
I have been pregnant however, and do remember late pregnancy was uncomfortable and awkward. The idea of sitting in one of those seats on a plane for hour after hour, not to mention the necessary frequent trips to the back of the plane to pee is enough to make me seriously doubt the Kenyan birth scenario.
The story putting her back on a plane to make the long flight returning to Hawaii within days of Obama's birth is to stretch credulity to the breaking point. If physical discomfort and inconvenience of such a trip weren't argument enough against it, then consider this, women in 1961 were kept in the hospital from one to two weeks following delivery. Birthers have Obama's mom giving birth in Kenya and returning to Hawaii in less than the normal hospital stay of eleven days (longer for a first-time mom) in 1961.
The story is just not credible on so many levels - this just scratches the surface.
Really!
Women stayed in 14 days when I started my own family and then it came down to 10 and now after a normal delivery, if it's in the morning, the woman will go home in the evening.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6187220.stm
When I trained (in the 1960s)nearly all the mothers stayed in for 10 days.
http://midwifemuse.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/early-days-breastfeeding/
Both of my sources are from the UK and are, I'm guessing, more relevant to practices in a British colony than statistics gathered in Brazil. (It looks like a Brazilian source - you haven't provided a link)
The second cite is an interesting read if you want to get a feel for why I think it is highly improbable that Ann grabbed her newborn, and hopped on a plane for the long flight back to Hawaii shortly after giving birth.
The opinions and experience recorded in the links I provided were not mine, and were delivered by professionals with the exception of the moms, of course.
In 1970, the average length of stay for all hospital deliveries was 4.1 days in the United States!
That's like 9 years after 1961, or are you suggesting that there were no changes between 1961 and 1970.
I'm sorry that having your child was such a traumatic experience for you. In most cases, it's not.
Having a first baby for most women I have known (are you a man?), and me too, is a big, life changing experience. Along with the physical changes, not to mention discomfort, and hormonal adjustments comes a new tiny person to care for and a host of questions and concerns. That doesn't make it traumatic, it makes it big and new and exhausting - the kind of thing women like to have their mothers around for to ask questions of and get support.
I was born long before the 1960's and my mother never spent more than four days in the hospital for any of her many children!
I'm sure you're telling the truth. That doesn't mean your mother would have been willing or able to get on a plane a short time after giving birth to her first child for a trip half way around the world.
The point to noting hospital stays in the '60s is to point out that there is a bit more to the birth of a first child than birthers seem to think.
Really?
How old was the baby? Where did she go?
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