Yeah... There is something about all this that makes me uneasy. It's almost too good to be true is it not? I mean, it would be the mother of all blunders on Obama's part if it were true. It almost feels like we're walking into something unpleasant.
But... like you erkyl, I'm a skeptic. I haven't owned a television in almost 20 years. I read mostly. I don't get stirred up by the latest thing on the idiot box. I have only heard Obama's voice on 2 occasions- both on Youtube. Plus I live in the UK nowadays and have not been in the US in a long time and am fairly distanced from the heat of things.
The thing that caught my eye initially on this was the COLB. As soon as I saw that I said to myself 'Well, that's not a birth certificate'. This was before I had read any further on the subject at all. Then I got to thinking about it. It just seems damned odd that a COLB would have been offered up in the first place. I mean, if you were trying to demonstrate something of that importance to answer all the 'right wing looneys' out there and any other doubters- why offer up a document that would plainly raise more questions?
It doesn't make any sense. We're either being set up or there really isn't a birth certificate. It wouldn't be a staff gaffe- 'Oh, when you said birth certificate sir, I thought this COLB thing was it so I posted that- my mistake'. If it was a staff gaffe, the White House could have corrected that right away by simply producing the real document since the assumption is: producing the COLB equates to a willingness to answer these questions. But if that willingness is truly there- the real document would have been produced by now. Unless we're being played or there is no document.
And this is the other thing that bothers me about this: why have no friends or relatives (who would have known where Obama was born- assuming he was born in Hawaii) stepped up to say 'well, yeah, he was born here! I saw him the day his mother brought him home from the hospital'. I mean where are these people? Have they been in the news already and I just missed it or what? Surely they would have stepped up. I mean even it's some sicko serial killer people always want to say 'yeah, I knew him when he was a kid'. Surely when it's the president we're talking about there'd be dozens of people who knew for a fact that Obama was born in Hawaii lining up to talk on the television or something?
Not that that would legally prove anything but the more people you have claiming to have seen him in the hospital as a new born infant, the less chances it's a conspiracy because it would be difficult to get that many people to agree to something like that. Where are these people?
The problem is that there are no relatives, although one would think there would be some friends. His only relative is his half sister, and she's several years younger, and would thus not have any first hand knowledge. His mother would not be all that old, where she still alive, around 65, and would normally have had lots of friends in Hawaii that would know first hand of events. The problem with that is she had not lived in Hawaii more than a few months when she came up PG with Barry. So no close friends there either. Her friends would have all been in the Seattle/Mercer Island area, where she went to and graduated from high school. A few of those have reported seeing her with Barry, in Seattle, not Hawaii.
But of course there would be no point in keeping a birth in Seattle or vicinity quiet, unless "vicinity" included Vancouver British Columbia. Or a flight to there from some other British Commonwealth country and a "no records" drive accross the border to Washington state.