Posted on 07/28/2009 5:29:21 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Pres. Barack Obama has a birthday coming up, a week from Tuesday. We hope he takes the day off—or even the whole week, the briefest of respites from his busy schedule of truncating our liberties while exhausting both the public coffers and our patience. The president’s birthday comes to mind because we recently spent some time looking at a photograph of his birth certificate, being held by Joe Miller of Factcheck.org, who took the time to examine it. President Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at 7:24 p.m, in Honolulu County, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. The serial number on his birth certificate is 010641. Baby Barack’s birth was not heralded, as some of his partisans have suggested, by a star in the east, but it was heralded by the Honolulu Star, as well as the Honolulu Advertiser, each of which published birth announcements for young Mr. Obama.
Much foolishness has become attached to the question of President Obama’s place of birth, and a few misguided souls among the Right have indulged it. The myth that Barack Obama is ineligible to be president represents the hunt for a magic bullet that will make all the unpleasant complications of his election and presidency disappear. We are used to seeing conspiracy theories from the Left, for instance among the one in three Democrats who believe that 9/11 was an inside job conducted with the foreknowledge of the Bush administration. We’ve seen everything under the sun blamed on Dick Cheney and Halliburton, and Rosie O’Donnell has given us much mirth with her metallurgical expertise, while Andrew Sullivan has beclowned himself and tarnished the good name of The Atlantic with his investigation into the “real” parentage of Trig Palin. Most notable, the Iraq War summoned the craziness in a big way, and there are those who still shudder over their espressos at the mention of the Carlyle Group. And there is a fair amount of crossover between those fixated on Obama’s birth certificate and the 9/11 “truthers” — lawyer Phil Berg, for instance, is a player in both worlds. There is nothing that President Obama’s coterie would enjoy more than to see the responsible Right become a mirror image of the loopy Left circa 2003.
The birth-certificate business is not a uniquely conservative phenomenon; the allegation that Obama was born in Kenya seems to have originated with a Hillary Clinton supporter at a blog called The Blue State. Either way, this fantasy is not particularly widespread within the conservative movement, but it has attracted enough interest that it needs to be addressed.
The fundamental fiction is that Obama has refused to release his “real” birth certificate. This is untrue. The document that Obama has made available is the document that Hawaiian authorities issue when they are asked for a birth certificate. There is no secondary document cloaked in darkness, only the state records that are used to generate birth certificates when they are requested.
If one applies for a United States passport, the passport office will demand a birth certificate. It defines this as an official document bearing “your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records.” The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced—the document is formally known as a “certificate of live birth”—bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate—which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested. In other words, what President Obama has produced is the “real” birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii’s health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama’s birth certificate is identical to that in the state’s records, the so-called vault copy. Given that fact, we are loath even to engage the fanciful notion that President Obama was born elsewhere, contrary to the information on his birth certificate, but we note for the record that his mother was a native of Kansas, whose residents have been citizens of the United States for a very long time, and whose children are citizens of the United States as well.
The attention paid to President Obama’s place of birth is not unprecedented. In fact, it may be the only thing President Obama has in common with Pres. Chester Arthur, whose opponents whispered that he had been born in Canada. A number of unsuccessful presidential candidates—George Romney, Barry Goldwater, and Lowell Weicker among them—actually were born outside of the United States (in Mexico, the Arizona Territory, and Paris, respectively) to American parents and thereby into American citizenship. If the conspiracy theorists have evidence that President Obama went through the naturalization process, let them show it. But there is no such evidence, because this theory is based on unreality, as two minutes’ examining the claims of its proponents reveals. The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is that a lack of evidence for the theory is taken as yet more evidence for the theory. Indeed, the maddening thing about dealing with conspiracy hobbyists of this or any sort is the ever-shifting nature of their argument and their alleged evidence: Never mind the birth certificate, his step-grandmother said he was born in Kenya! (No, she didn’t.)
One of the unfortunate consequences of this red-herring discussion is that there are plenty of questions about Obama’s background and history that we would like to have answered. In spite of two books of memoirs, there remain murky areas in his biography. And when it comes to those college transcripts, count us among those who’d love to know whether Dr. Bailout ever took an advanced economics class and how he performed in it.
Barack Obama may prefer European-style socialized health care. He may consider himself a citizen of the Earth and sometimes address his audiences as “people of the world,” as though he were born not in another country but on another planet. Like Bruce Springsteen, he has a lot of bad political ideas; but he was born in the U.S.A.
Of course.
Again I reply, to make "birthers" look foolish. It's pretty shrewd, actually...almost Rove-ian.
I agree, because the MSM, which doesn't want to say anything negative about their guy in the WH, spends time on this issue thinking they're discrediting Obama's opposition, thus giving him some wiggling room.
However, people who might have supported That One in the beginning, but who have since started to think more negatively of him, might just begin to have serious doubts about his eligibility. So it truly is a double edged sword. I just don't want conservatives to think they can run him from the WH over this issue, because it ain't gonna happen. So if folks want to follow up on it, fine, but spend MORE time working against That One by supporting conservatives running for Congress in 2010. Those Republicans in districts represented now by Blue Dog Democrats have a ready made issue in the fact that the vast majority of Blue Dogs, though they have talked a lot against That One's spending plans, haven't voted against them.
So he was Irish born. It does not at all say that he was not an American citizen at the time of Arthur’s birth.
Oh, now I get it.
“GSWarrior’s Plan to get elected President” - Build public support and trust by hiding documents pertaining to GWSarrior’s history, thereby alienating voters.
Very shrewd...almost criminal.
Check out naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/
There is plenty of legal precedent for the term meaning someone born to two parents who are both citizens.
Again I reply, to make “birthers” look foolish. It’s pretty shrewd, actually...almost Rove-ian.
***I suppose that says a lot about the president, then. That he would expend so much effort and money and risk, just to make a handful of Freepers look foolish. So, now that it’s more than a handful, what’s the payoff for him?
I absolutely do not make your point, nor do you. Certification is a process or an act. A certificate a tangible thing, usually a written or printed piece of paper.
The Hawaiian "Certificate of Birth" is the old typed paper document, and the source document of birth record information from the years in which it was used.
The "Certification of Live Birth" is a computer printed document that says they went through some process to determine the facts of a particular birth, or they examined an original source document and printed those facts out on a new piece of paper, certifying that that information presented has been verified.
And the state is correct to call the document a certificate and the process a certification.
One of the first articles I read about the birth certificate issue was on American Thinker - it brought up this issue and quoted as evidence hawaiian law - specifically §338-17.8. I found the law online, and here is what it say:
Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child… [L 1982, c 182, §1]
The idea goes that the parents/grandparents lied, the certificate was ammended and/or granted to indicate that he was born in Hawaii.
Another argument I came across is that it is possible to get a hawaiian birth certificate if a foreign born child was adopted through legal means by the parents who reside in hawaiian.
However - both laws weren't in existance when obama was born. The first was adopted in the 1980s. The second in the 1970s.
Neither reflect any light on the issue at all.
The second question - who validates presidential eligibility - I don't have an answer for. I don't know - because like y'all, I have always assumed each secretary of state did. That's a good question - and one of the loopholes that people like Congressman Campbell are trying to sew up.
The announcement says that they live in Hawaii and has the address. That’s what I was referring to, not the hospital. If Mr. and Mrs. Barrack H. Obama live at that address, then I think it’s safe to assume that he was born in Hawaii. You point out that the newspaper account does not have the hospital, but look at all the other announcements. They don’t have the hospital either. All of them have the same thing, the address.
I don’t believe that even President Obeyme would have the cajones—or whatever you want to call it—to seek the highest office in this land if he were not qualified constitutionally. It makes absolutely no sense for him to even attempt to do so.
“If Mr. and Mrs. Barrack H. Obama live at that address, then I think it’s safe to assume that he was born in Hawaii. “
The point was made earlier that the Obama’s did NOT live at the address in the announcement.
It was posted earlier in this thread.
Well, there is the one minor detail of Obama Sr. being a citizen of Kenya, which automatically disqualifies Obama to hold the office of President, per Article II, Section I of the US Constitution.
Also, per the citizenship laws on the books at the time of Obama's birth, his mother would have had to have been a resident of the US for ten years, five of which were after the age of 14. Stanley Ann Dunham was 18 at the time of Obama's birth, so per the law, she was not legally able to convey even simple US citizenship to her son, much less Natural Born citizenship.
I couldn’t find anything that existed beyond conjecture.
Funny how you missed these two major points of fact while you were doing all of your research. You have to actually look, in order to find.
See Post #19
Maya Soetoro holds a Hawaiian Certification of Live Birth. It's an important distinction that too many people are missing.
A Certificate of Live Birth is an actual long form birth certificate with doctor's signature, and those of attending nurses or physicians, with a great many other details that are NOT on the Certification of Live Birth.
Obama Has Been Planning For His Natural Born Problem since 2006
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2302751/posts
Mitchell Langbert | Friday, December 12, 2008 | Mitchell Langbert
Posted on 07/28/2009 7:40:18 AM PDT by ckilmer
His refusal to show the original birth certificate to all the people who want to see it is just part of the package related to Obama that must be showcased and opposed. For a man who proudly boasted during the campaign that his presidency would be the most “transparent” in US history his refusal to show the original birth certificate, to fight it in court, will continue to keep this story on the frontburner, chipping away at his presidency. It’s a fallacy to claim that your fellow Republicans or conservatives only care about this issue to the exclusion of others that Obama is pushing in his agenda.
Just this morning I was banned from Huffpo for stating calmly I would like to see the original birth certificate and if Obama finally did show it and it proved he was born in Hawaii then I would gladly accept that fact. I’d hate to see something like that happen on Free Republic, where people who are legitimately concerned about this issue are mocked in the same way the liberals mock them on leftist websites.
I am not one of those who would mock you or others. I sincerely hope you are wrong however.
There is no part of Article II, Section 1 that says that a person is not natural born if one parent is a foriegner. To top it all off - We've had a president before with a foreign father - Chester Arthur.
Your second point - the mother had to be a citizen at least 10 years - doesn't even make sense. She was a natural born citizen by any definition - that isn't up for debate, is it? Probably, though, I am just not understanding your point. What law are you specifically citing?
Just to keep things moving along - this is what the current state of the law is vis-a-vis Natural Born Citizen, taking into account the constituion and such: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html
True enough...
I'm afraid that it's NOT "true enough".
Obama cannot be a Natural Born Citizen of the US because his father was a citizen of Kenya. The very best that Barack Obama can qualify for, is simple US citizenship. Not Natural Born citizenship, as understood by the Framers of the US Constitution.
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