Keyes, Birthers, Buckley and Birchers: Oh My!

CQ ^ | 7/28/09 | Bill Pascoe

[steve-b]

"Dear Birthers: Stop! Sincerely, Serious Conservatives."

I've held fire for the last several months as I've watched the so-called "Birther" movement gain steam. At first it was amusing, like playing a drinking game — you know, like taking a shot every time Chris Matthews explains why he insists on pronouncing the former Vice President's name "CHEE-knee."

It's not amusing anymore....

But that "Birther" thing ...

Seriously. Is this anything but a gift to the Democrats? ...

National Review Founder William F. Buckley, Jr., Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, conservative historian and philosopher Russell Kirk, and American Enterprise Institute President William Baroody took it upon themselves secretly to meet at The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, where they decided Welch and the Birchers would have to be excommunicated from the Conservative Movement, lest their lunacy taint reasonable and responsible conservative political activity.

Were Buckley alive today, is there any doubt he would have the same response to the "Birthers"?

I think not.

[deks]

Barack Obama, January 21, 2009

“A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Freedom_of_Information_Act/

“My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Transparency_and_Open_Government/

[cripplecreek]

Obama comments on the confirmation of Justice Roberts.

"Let me also say that I remain distressed that the White House during this confirmation process, which overall went smoothly, failed to provide critical documents as part of the record that could have provided us with a better basis to make our judgment with respect to the nomination. This White House continues to stymie efforts on the part of the Senate to do its job. I hope with the next nominee who comes up for the Supreme Court that the White House recognizes that in fact it is its duty not just to the Senate but to the American people to make sure we can thoroughly and adequately evaluate the record of every single nominee who comes before us."

[Know et al]

Obama is hurting his presidency by refusing to release his long form birth certificate (BC) and his other personal records. No person in their right mind can miss the question; If Obama is eligible to be president, why would he conceal almost all of his personal history?

If in fact there is nothing to hide, what would be a reasonable justification for hiding all that information.
A person would have to be very naive or complicit in some cover up not to have that question.

A man that thought enough of his past to write (ghost write)about his life now conceals almost all of the pertinent information about his life. Why?

Anyone that does not think that is a legitimate question may not be a “birther” but I would question their ability to reason.

[Tribune7]

How did the “truthers” hurt the Democrats?

[Eagle Eye]

Forget the name issue. Forget it.

Can’t escape their mockery. Can’t. That is one of their weapons.

Ignore it then it becomes ineffective.

Who cares how they mock those who protest taxes by calling them tea baggers...or what they call those who want to see obama release documents....or what they call those patriots that volunteer to look after the borders?

Their mockery only works when it deters or alters their opponents.

[Eagle Eye]

There are so many angles on this and imo each should be examined to exhaustion.

Not only did O claim to have dual citizenship at birth (which to me refutes any claim of being Natual Born) then there is reason to believe that his US citizenship was rejected in favor of Indonesian citizenship.

Those are two solid strikes against his claim to NBC even if he was born in the heart of Kansas!

[ansel12]

As best I can tell the Birchers exist to sell each other books, I am not aware of anything constructive that they do in a political sense.

[driftless2]

"Bircher's wrong about"

I believe one of their stances was that Eisenhower was a member of the world-wide, communist conspiracy. Incidentally I know a guy who was so far gone, he was actually kicked out of the Birchers.

[Finatic]

Why does Jack Ryan’s sealed divorce records get opened up for the press and get away with it when we know absolutely nothing about 0bama.

I freely admit I have been a “birther” long before the term was coined because to me it is a legitimate constitional issue.

What is he hiding and why is everybody from the drive by media to the SCOTUS covering for him?

I have long believed in the Frank Marshall Davis theory.

[wintertime]

The momentum should not be lost but the thrust now should be to portray Barack Obama not as a counterfeit Natural Born Citizen
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Obama, **himself** claims that his father was a British citizen and Kenyan. Obama **himself** claims that he was adopted by an Indonesian father.

Sounds like dual loyalty to me. Birth certificate or no, how can he be natural born?

The problem here is that our legislators and judges refuse to address the issue of his natural born status and claim that the ordinary citizen has no standing to have an answer to the question. Our conservative talk show hosts are AWOL as well.

The solution? Learn to live with the frustration of **knowing** that Obama can NOT be a natural born citizen ( by his own admission) and having no way address the problem.

[Spaulding]

Absolutely. The birth certificate issue is a soap opera, and soap operas obviously fascinate lots of people. But the strength of our government depends upon a foundation with an almost invariant interpretation, and that is the constitution. Natural born citizenship was defined by nature, naturally born on US soil of parents who were raised, or chose to respect our form of government (naturalized). Someone is, or is not, without legal intervention, a natural born citizen. Even dual citizenship is a legislative creation, and not part of natural born citizenship. "Dual citizenship" claimed by Obama is simply misdirection. He knows most of us don't know what the term means, and other will deny they knew.

My understanding of this has been slowly evolving, though I suspect there are lots of quiet, and better informed Freepers to whom this is not news. So even dual citizenship has nothing to do with the presidency. Naturalized citizens are made by our legal system, and not eligible to be president. We require the president and his backup, and only that office, to be natural born citizens.

There is a sequence of steps before swearing in where a candidates qualifications should have been checked. The candidate signs legal documents (and Obama did) attesting under law that he/she is natural born. Obama knows very well he lied, just as he has about so many things. One of his law firms published a paper about amending the Natural Born provision which assiduously avoids the half of the provision, repeated in many supreme court decisions, and in the famous Senate Res. 511 http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/041008c.html by Patrick Leahy et al that a natural born citizen must have both parents citizens. Any deviation from the definition is only legal via constitutional amendment, and that amendment has been attempted, and failed, at least two dozen times.

The natural born provision, no less valuable because it is at least 250 years old, was created to insure allegiance of the president who is also commander in chief of our armed forces. Exactly what is missing from Obama is allegiance to our constitution and our form of government. “Change” is Obama’s central theme. What he meant by that, while it could be ferreted by looking at the “Dreams from his Father” of a Marxist, Muslim Kenya, and those of his associates, black, Arab, Hispanic, and white, was hidden by our state-run media. His allegiance is the problem, and that is precisely what the second clause in natural born citizen was designed to protect us from.

I recently re-read the Sarah Herlihy article in Chicago-Kent Law Review, “Amending the Natural Born Citizen Requirement”, 2006. In 27 pages she assiduously avoids quoting the definition cited in numerous supreme court decisions, and never mentions the source cited by Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, John Marshall, John Bingham, or used by Patrick Leahy et al and judge Chertoff, former HSA Director. She intentionally obfuscates the issue by pointing out people like William Ayres, claiming that his birth on our soil didn't insure his allegiance. Vattel, our founders, our justices, all know that the reason, described thoroughly in Law of Nations, is that allegiance is assumed to come firstly through ones parents. Statists would like public school teachers’s principles to prevail over those of the parents, but our founders knew better. (She also argues that denying the presidency to naturalized citizens is racist, xenophobic, and a hinderance to the evolution of a globalist society)

Dual citizenship is irrelevent. Until the constitution is amended, Obama cannot be a natural born citizen. His father was not a citizen. Sadly, because I like his ideas, neither can Bobby Jindal, because his parents were not citizens when he was born. Most of our citizens are natural born. Jindal can be Secretary of State, Treasury Secretary, etc. etc. But he can't be president, and neither can Obama, and neither could McCain - who was certain to be challenged, had he ever received the votes to provide the Democrats with the opportunity to challenge him.

Look at the trap: McCain wins, Dems challenge and there is a new election, probably putting Hillary in office because the Repubs would challenge Obama; McCain isn't challenged by anyone, thanks to continued legal hand-waving, Senate Res. 511 is only one, so he runs, and Repubs don't dare raise Obama’s ineligibility. Posey and others will require some sort of validation (though Posey pleads ignorance of the definition of natural born citizen), and Hillary will be in place, with Acorn well funded and 20 million “immigrants” voting in Spanish for Hillary.