I agree that her conclusion that he is a natural born citizen is a legal one and not particularly relevant compared to her confirmation that the underlying document says he was born in Hawaii.
I think a lot of the air must go out of the birther balloon. I have heard the audio evidence and read the subtitles on You Tube of the telephone interview with Obama's grandmother in Kenya debunked by a version of the interview which extends the interview and presents the portion in which the statement that he was born in Kenya was flatly and repeatedly recanted. I know of no other evidence that he was born in Kenya.
Against that we have the newspaper announcements and we have a certification of live birth which has been orally confirmed by the state official that the certification is a faithful copy of the original birth certificate and that the original birth certificate states that he was born in Hawaii.
Caveat: there might be evidence that the Obama administration itself proffered counterfeit Certifications of Live Birth but I am generally unfamiliar with the back-and-forth on this issue and draw no conclusions from it. Likewise, I am aware that Doctor Ortiz has written to Congress alleging that Brock Obama has used fraudulent Social Security numbers but I have seen no documentary or other primary evidence and draw no conclusions from those allegations. These issues do not seem to be pertinent to the birth certificate inquiry in any event. If there are other factors, especially relating to the place of Obama's birth, I would be grateful to be advised of them.
Thus the birthers are now left with nothing more than the admittedly common sense question: where is the birth certificate? It is undeniable that the failure of Obama to produce longform certificate is inexplicable unless it contains damaging information of some kind. But that damaging information might not have anything to do with place of birth. A court is likely to say, we are not in the business of conducting investigations in the absence of some proof, we are in the business of adjudicating cases and in that framework we will permit some discovery to elicit the facts concerning a controversy, the general basis of which has been established. But you have not established a controversy merely by alleging his foreign birth and having no more support for it then his refusal to produce a document is not otherwise legally compelled to produce.
The problem with the question is not that it is uncompelling, to the contrary it is a very compelling, the problem with the question is that there is no legal reason to ask it. In the absence of at least a prima facie showing of Obama's birth elsewhere than in the United States, there is no reason legally to go behind the Certification of Live Birth.
The birthers are faced with a real legal challenge. We have already seen them lose several cases on the issue of standing and I expect that results will be repeated consistently. Beyond the issue of standing, birthers are also confronted with a very serious legal challenge of convincing a court they are presenting it with a justiciable controversy and not with a political question where the court has no business ruling. They must convince the court that this is a matter for the judicial branch and not for the Congress, or for the states, or for the secretaries of the various states, or for the election commission, or for the political parties. Birthers must convinced the court that it is an article 3 problem and not a problem that should be solved in another branch of the government.
So we are reduced to a situation in which we have an inexplicable failure to produce documents which would end the controversy. But the controversy itself has no underpinning except the inexplicable failure to produce the document. In other words, there is no evidence of any quality that Barack Obama was born in Kenya or anywhere other than Hawaii. So there is no legal reason to ask the question. Certainly, in the absence of evidence that he was not born in Hawaii, it will be very difficult indeed to secure an order from a court to compel Barack Obama to produce his original longform birth certificate because courts are not in the business to conduct fishing expeditions, no matter how ardent the convictions of the fishermen. The court simply must have some evidence upon which to proceed. The birthers cannot withstand a motion that says, assuming the truth of your allegations, you have simply made no factual allegation that he was born anywhere outside of Hawaii.
Therefore, I believe that the likelihood the birthers will prevail in court is remote. There is a small possibility that a cascade of army personnel declining to obey Obama as commander-in-chief could change the standing issue and produce a justiciable question.
Because the matter is unlikely to be concluded in a court does not mean the matter should not be pursued in court and elsewhere for political purposes. Star Traveler makes a lot of sense when it comes to the same conclusions but for different reasons when he argues that the best solution is legislation which compels presidential candidates to produce their birth certificates. Since the courts will not likely grant relief, this is a sound way to keep the matter open and presents the most likely avenue toward compelling Obama to produce a legitimate certificate if he wants to proceed to a second term.
I have directed this to pissant as I know you are the leading crusader on this issue. I would like to have your serious input with a view toward correcting my factual understanding and conclusions.
