What you said was well-stated and well-reasoned. I see your points.
What doesn’t make sense to me, though, is the statements by Kenyan officials that he was born there or the sealing of Kenyan records. What records would they seal if he wasn’t born there?
From the money end of things, there could have been another source of money, just like there were sources of money for a broke BHO II to travel to Pakistan, Kenya, and Bali - all at points where he was supposedly dead broke. We know he got at least a million (was it 3 million?) in campaign funds from sources he specifically enabled to be untrackable, and they’re claiming he’s planning on “raising” a billion for 2012. BHO Sr’s parents were described as being poor initially, but if I understand correctly they were actually quite wealthy. Correct me if I’m wrong on that.
So I see why the money issue is raised, but with as much as is hidden about that whole family and as connected as they were to the communist community, I wouldn’t write off other sources of money.
The time it takes to get to and from Kenya is another issue. If money wasn’t an issue flights would handle the timeframe pretty easily, I think. And there is a story of a missionary who helped SAD get to the airport. I’ll see if I can find that story for you to look at.
It’s embarrassing to say, but I’m still a bit confused on the timetable for when SAD had to be in Seattle. At first it was said that classes started about 3 weeks after BHO II was born. Then the questions came up as to whether they were distance classes. And last I had heard somebody was saying that the classes didn’t actually start until September. Do you know if we have anything conclusive as to when SAD was actually in Seattle?
If what rolling stone said was true about a passport not being necessary for travel to Canada and Mexico at that time, the Canada theory wouldn’t necessarily explain why the refusal to show passport records - even to the point of presenting to a judge what really appears to be a forged DOS memo. If there wasn’t the element of potential perjury I suppose it could just be them acting like a-holes in order to spite the “birthers”. But to perjure oneself just to spite somebody seems stupid even for government workers.
Interesting stuff to think about, for sure. I hope we get answers someday.
“What doesn’t make sense to me, though, is the statements by Kenyan officials that he was born there or the sealing of Kenyan records.”
I did see one statement by a Kenyan “minister” of something. It was unequivocal. That is, unlike Granny’s statement, which appears to have been “clarified” subsequently in the same interview (and this denial of a Kenyan birth was reinforced in a subsequent interview), there is no mistaking what this individual intended to say. So I’ll make 2 observations. First, we know nothing about what “information base” this individual was relying upon. He wasn’t making the statement as an official who would have had access to formal records documenting a Kenyan birth. So his information was picked up from “the news.” But we’ve already established that more than one African paper asserted Obama was born in Kenya. I’ve explained earlier why I think such reports could have arisen “innocently” through reporting mistakes especially in light of Sr. having the same name.
Second, we too keep official records of goings-on in Congress: it’s called the Congressional Record. With 535 members of Congress able to speak into the Record every day Congress is in session, it should not surprise you that from time to time, one of them mispeaks, i.e., makes a statement that is flat out wrong. It can happen because of shoddy staff work, but it also can happen because a member of Congress mis-read or misinterpreted something given to them. Members of Congress are able to “revise and extend” their remarks, but if they fail to do so for whatever reason, their error is codified forever in the printed pages of the Record. For all these reasons, the Congressional Record cannot even be relied upon in a court of law. That’s a description of the legislative record for the richest country on the planet. It doesn’t seem likely that Kenya’s system is any more reliable/accurate than our own.
People often hear or believe what they want to. The idea that Obama is a “son of Kenya” or born there clearly would have a great deal of appeal to Kenyans. If a Kenyan encountered a newspaper report that Obama had been born there, there wouldn’t necessarily be a strong motive to fact-check this claim by digging further. Likewise, if an overeager staffer put this material into their boss’s speech, the boss isn’t likely to have time to fact-check that speech himself or even to raise a question with the staffer over its accuracy. Politicians make speeches all the time. If they questioned every factoid that came their way, they couldn’t function. So they hire the best staff they can and hope for the best. But no staff is infallible etc.
You know this evidence better than I do. If there’s a whole series of Kenyan officials making this assertion, that’s a bit different kettle of fish (OTOH, don’t discount the possibility of what happens in the “telephone game.” One official hearing it from another official might automatically attach credence to the claim in a way that they wouldn’t if they read it in a paper. Then the inadvertent mistruth gets wider and wider circulation etc.).
I am not aware of the sealing Kenyan records story. I’m vaguely familiar with some wild accounts about tracking down a Kenyan BC, but to my knowledge, every single one of these has been shown to be fraudulent. Indeed, none of the Freepers who recently have tried to convince me to consider a Kenyan birth scenario has cited a Kenyan BC as evidence. Since “you” (collectively) a) have vetted all the available evidence carefully; and b) have a strong incentive to put forth a Kenyan BC as evidence when trying to argue for this scenario, I infer from the failure to include any of these various Kenyan BCs on your list of evidence that my very casual impression that all these tales had been debunked apparently is true.
Anyway, if you have a link to the best summary of the “sealed records” story, I’d be interested in reading in. Not having yet done so, I’m not in a position to judge the reliability of such claims.
“From the money end of things, there could have been another source of money, just like there were sources of money for a broke BHO II to travel to Pakistan, Kenya, and Bali - all at points where he was supposedly dead broke. We know he got at least a million (was it 3 million?) in campaign funds from sources he specifically enabled to be untrackable, and they’re claiming he’s planning on “raising” a billion for 2012. BHO Sr’s parents were described as being poor initially, but if I understand correctly they were actually quite wealthy. Correct me if I’m wrong on that.”
We have to distinguish between different time periods. Although details are murky, I don’t doubt Obama’s ability as a young man to tap into resources to bankroll the various trips you describe (I believe his roommate at Occidental and/or Columbia was quite well off, so I’ve always assumed the Pakistan trip was bankrolled by him, for example). After all, his father appears to have done the same simply by being a very promising student. But there’s a world of difference between a 20-something with promise, (in whom an “investment” can be easily imagined to “pay off” for a benefactor or country sponsor) and an infant. Unless we imagine BHO to be a secular equivalent of Jesus Christ—selected at birth to do great things—there’s no reason any of the sources BHO or his father secured assistance from would have had any interest in providing similar support to a single mom and her illegitimately-conceived baby.
As I indicated elsewhere, Mboya’s organization that sponsored airlifts certainly would have had an interest in furthering Sr’s educational pursuits. But any money they diverted to assisting him with “personal matters” such as the freshman girl he’d knocked up within weeks of meeting her was going to be funding they couldn’t give to another Kenyan to come to the U.S. to study. How could they possibly justify such an expenditure? Sr. was a promising student, but at the time this decision had to be made, he hadn’t even been accepted into Harvard, so much of his promise was yet to be firmly established. If he were the president’s son or someone similarly important, perhaps he would have had sufficient “connections” to make bankrolling a trip to Africa a piece of cake. But he was the son of a cook for missionaries in Nairobi—a cook who had 3 wives, by the way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.
In short, this was NOT a family rolling in dough. I believe I elsewhere pointed to an account showing that once Sr. reached Hawaii, he realized the expense of attending school there was much greater than he’d supposed. The money he’d saved to make this possible was expected to run out after only 2 semesters, so he had resigned himself to needing to get a job to support himself through school. If he’d had easy access to funds through a sponsor, none of this would have been necessary. And in that context, to suddenly have the burden of a new wife and infant on his hands wasn’t likely to bring a smile to his face. For all we know, finances were at the root of what apparently quickly became an estranged relationship (”marriage” notwithstanding).
As for BHO’s more recent campaign contributions, once a person reaches that level of national prominence there obviously would be all sorts of interests—foreign or otherwise—who might be happy to grease his palm in exchange for “access.” But this doesn’t mean these sources have been around since he was a student at UH.
“It’s embarrassing to say, but I’m still a bit confused on the timetable for when SAD had to be in Seattle. At first it was said that classes started about 3 weeks after BHO II was born. Then the questions came up as to whether they were distance classes. And last I had heard somebody was saying that the classes didn’t actually start until September. Do you know if we have anything conclusive as to when SAD was actually in Seattle?”
I agree that WND (and maybe others) jumped the gun in claiming that the UW records proved SAD had left within 2 weeks (or “a few” I forget the exact claim) of BHO’s birth. My understanding accords with yours, that classes didn’t actually begin until perhaps the 3rd week of September (9/23 sticks in my mind, but there’s no guarantee that’s accurate). But I’m pretty sure that the first Seattle friend account was from late August, as opposed to September, since that account (or perhaps discussions about it) seemed to emphasize how soon after the birth that had occurred and that Ann didn’t even know how to change diapers yet: hard to believe Ann wouldn’t know how to change diapers after 4-6 weeks, so this suggests a trip to Seattle that occurred sooner than later.
I don’t know that anyone has documented the time-line for registering/enrolling in classes. Especially for a new/entering student, most universities are going to close registration a few weeks before classes so that they have reasonably accurate headcounts and can plan reasonably well. Yes, they have Drop/Add periods, but the point is, this time-line alone might have dictated that Ann be in Seattle by late August to nail down these arrangements, find a suitable place to live, work out child care etc. It would be pretty dicey to leave all that to just 1 week before classes started etc.
So there appears to be a “window” but no bulletproof evidence of when she actually began living in Seattle.
What bugs me the most about birther threads are the people who insist in MUST be Kenya, or it MUST be Malcom X, or whatever.
The fact is, we don't know WHY "Obama" and his minions are lying about his family history and why his birth documents (or lack of same) are being hidden.
It is a proven, certain fact that they are lying, and it's important to keep hammering THAT point, because THAT point is beyond dispute.
“If what rolling stone said was true about a passport not being necessary for travel to Canada and Mexico at that time, the Canada theory wouldn’t necessarily explain why the refusal to show passport records”
Agreed. That’s definitely a loose end not accounted for by a Vancouver birth. All the evidence points to Ann being in Seattle alone—as opposed to accompanied by Madelyn (who after all had job responsibilities). Also, the very fact she was even taking classes at UW suggests the possibility of estrangement from parents (since after all, she’d lived in their guest cottage for an unknown number of weeks/months in the spring/summer). If everything’s hunky-dory, why get uprooted and start anew at UW?
So it’s conceivable to me that Ann took matters into her own hand and just routinely applied for a passport not realizing she didn’t need it. Also, while passports may not have been needed for day travel or short trips, if Ann was in Canada for an extended period (and I’ve speculated she could have been there for weeks or months), it’s conceivable she DID need a passport, if for no other reason than to ensure she could get back into the U.S. without her identity or citizenship being challenged.
Passport applications DO require you to provide your travel plans/dates etc. So if there is a 1961 application record, it will state the country(ies) she intended to visit. But you probably already knew that.