Replies

"If his parents renounced his citizenship and declared him a Malaysian citizen, I’m not convinced he’s in like Flynt when he comes back."

It's been detailed here on FR in various discussions. US law does not allow parents to renounce the citizenship of a minor child, period. They can't do it.

Even as an adult, you have to go through a process. You can't do it accidentally.
<>As a matter of being accidental or not, there is a bit of logic here that I find troubling.

If what you say is true, a child could be born in the U.S., leave the very next day, live in a terrorist cell in Pakistan for forty plus years, then return to the United States 42 years later, and be sworn in as President that same day. However unlikely that this would happen, it still could happen if your claim is true. For that reason, I have to state that I find it difficult to accept your premise.

"Futher I simply dismiss your assertion that his birth record questions exist only in the land of Kooksville.

In fact I would assert that making such a claim is in and of itself kook blather."

Well I didn't make that claim, so I'm not going to worry about it. Okay...

There are kooky questions, and there are non-kooky questions. But if you want serious questions taken seriously, don't lump them in with the kooky ones.

Who is to determine what is kooky or not? James Carville thinks every question that has come to my mind about Obama is kooky. You may think half my questions are kooky. Someone else will think all my questions are reasoned. Serious questions are serious questions no matter where they are found.

There are always reasoned answers to even the kookiest of questions, so dismissing them is pointless.

"If what you say is true, a child could be born in the U.S., leave the very next day, live in a terrorist cell in Pakistan for forty plus years, then return to the United States 42 years later, and be sworn in as President that same day. However unlikely that this would happen, it still could happen if your claim is true. For that reason, I have to state that I find it difficult to accept your premise."

Since when does the ability to get a bizarre result, mean something isn't the law? :-)

These sorts of scenarios have been posted many times. They all incorporate the strange notion that actually getting elected President is a trivial after-thought. It isn't. Such a person would still have to win an election. And frankly, if the people of the US voted for such a person, well, we get the government we deserve.

But there's another important point to take from this. Not every ill result is prevented by a law. Just because something bad can happen doesn't mean it's illegal. Two different things.

From the State Department's web site, which also contains a link to the US statute:

Renunciation of U.S. Citizenship
A. THE IMMIGRATION & NATIONALITY ACT
Section 349(a)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) (8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(5)) is the section of law that governs the ability of a United States citizen to renounce his or her U.S. citizenship. That section of law provides for the loss of nationality by voluntarily performing the following act with the intent to relinquish his or her U.S. nationality:
[...]
F. RENUNCIATION FOR MINOR CHILDREN
Parents cannot renounce U.S. citizenship on behalf of their minor children. Before an oath of renunciation will be administered under Section 349(a)(5) of the INA, a person under the age of eighteen must convince a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer that he/she fully understands the nature and consequences of the oath of renunciation, is not subject to duress or undue influence, and is voluntarily seeking to renounce his/her U.S. citizenship.
http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html

"Who is to determine what is kooky or not?"

Are the 9-11 Truthers kooky? They have detailed, thought-out, "scientific" explanations for their beliefs. Should we take them serious? How about people that deny we landed on the moon? They have very detailed reasoned explanations too.

Birtherism is much more like those beliefs than not. It doesn't rely on the facts as we know them, but on distortions of those facts, on misreading the law, on historical revisionism, crackpot internet "analysts", and a blind acceptance of anyone and anything that appears to support Birtherism. That's not the kind of thing that deserves seriousness, and it's why the media doesn't give it any.

As I said, if you want the media to address serious questions about Obama's past, you shouldn't lump them in with birther stuff. Even if you can find a few of those real questions somewhere in the mass of the birther belief system, if you insist the media take birthers seriously you are going to be disappointed.