Posted on 07/01/2009 6:08:43 PM PDT by Red Steel
A group of House Republican lawmakers want all future aspirants for the White House to produce a U.S. birth certificate to prove they meet constitutional requirements to be president.
The legislators this week waded into a controversy that has roiled the conservative talk-show and blogging fringe since the hottest days of the presidential election campaign -- when the validity of the citizenship of both Barack Obama and John McCain were questioned.
McCain was born to U.S. citizens on a military installation in the Panama Canal Zone. Obama was born in Hawaii, the son of an American mother and a Kenyan father.
Court cases challenging both candidates' citizenship sputtered. So have the accusations about McCain.
But, on the political right, suspicions that President Obama was actually born in Africa -- fueled by the absence of Obama's certified "long-form" birth certificate -- rage on. One of the most vocal advocates of that point of view is aging singer Pat Boone.
The GOP House members sponsoring the birth-certificate resolution -- which has gained the nickname of the "birther bill" -- are Reps. Bill Posey of Florida; John Campbell of California; Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Bob Goodlatte of Virginia; and Randy Neugebauer, John Culberson, and John Carter, all of Texas.
"Most Americans are probably surprised that they don't" have to document meeting the requirement, said Blackburn spokesman Claude Chafin. "A lot of people expressed surprise to her since (last year's presidential campaign) that people don't have to actually document anything."
Neugebauer's support for the bill and comments about Obama's status as a natural born citizen drew fire from MSNBC "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann, a liberal pundit, who pronounced the congressman's constituents "idiots" for electing him.
Does Neugebauer in fact doubt Obama's citizenship? "I don't have the documentation one way or the other," Neugebauer said this week. "And so my assumption is that he is a natural born citizen, that hopefully the appropriate people checked that."
Neugebauer and the bill's author, Rep. Bill Posey of Florida, contend there's nothing partisan or politically motivated about House Resolution 1503.
"It's not about President Obama," Posey said. "It's not about me. It's not retroactive."
A Texas government professor isn't buying it.
"I think some of them are milking the situation for the upcoming election," said Laurence "Casey" Jones of Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas.
He said it was frightening that the lawmakers are trying to legitimizing assertions of rightwing "birthers" who question Obama's citizenship, said Jones, who teachers classes on the Constitution.
He sees no legitimate need for the bill.
"Anyone in Washington knows what's already required to be president," Jones said. Intelligence officials conduct extensive background checks before presidents take office, he added.
Posey said he's building on his history of election reform begun as a Florida state senator after the rancorous 2000 presidential election.
Posey thought legislation requiring presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate would be a simple solution to citizenship issues.
"Most of the public thinks it's the law now," Posey said.
He said he, too, has taken heat, but from the liberal end of the blogosphere. "Tin hat" and a "wing nut" are some of the names he's been called by liberal bloggers.
"Some people have just taken it as an opportunity to create this warfare that I guess makes them look like a reporter or something, that they have created an issue," Posey said. "But none of the articles that you read were objective."
On Wednesday, pundit Olbermann awarded Neugebauer a bronze "Worst Person in the World" award Wednesday.
"The people that elected you are obviously idiots," Olbermann said on his show. "That does not mean everybody else is."
Olbermann's dander was up following Neugebauer's answer to Lubbock radio host Chad Hasty's query: Did the congressman believe Obama is a U.S. citizen? "You know, I don't know," Neugebauer told Hasty last week. "I've never seen him produce documents that would say one way or the other."
"Congressman Neugebauer has full confidence in the intelligence of the residents of the 19th Congressional District," Neugebauer spokeswoman Michelle Ozanus said. "He knows they can make up their own minds regarding this legislation.
Day late and a dollar short?
Common sense.
If the democrats oppose it a lot of people will wonder why.
After Zer0 of course - but then the Dem’s will kill the term limits of presidents from two years to as many times they want to run ... just what the media was accusing Bush of wanting to try ....
No. To the contrary.
It’s starting to creep into the mainstream after ubiquitous, Herculean efforts by the left to squash it. It is a beautiful thing to see.
Barn door... cows.
Doh! I coulda had an Ethiopean!
This would affect 2012, wouldn’t it?
Fraud. Proof. Conviction.
New president.
I agree, but be assured, the Dems and Barry Libs will make sure that Barry’s BC falls under the ‘grandfather clause’.
;-)
They can’t “grandfather in” proven fraud upon the American people.
I would think so, but it really should be made retroactive to cover Barry.
As you know, this can be accomplished by the individual states themselves, requiring documentation or else a candidate cannot be placed on the state ballot. Several states have acted on this thus far, but I don’t know the results of them all. Oklahoma didn’t pass this time, but I’m hoping for the next legislative session.
I think that going the route of the state legislatures would be easier than getting it through the Congress...
Why not start with the WH occupant we have ?
Is this true, or did he make it up?
That would bring the COLB into it, and Barack’s media would say he already provided proof (which he didn’t do). Perception matters, not reality.
Agreed, hence my retroactive mention.
Gee, I thought natural born was already a prerequisite
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