Really?
Posted on 05/12/2010 8:47:16 AM PDT by curiosity
The origin of modern myths and legends is a side interest of mine, the birther myths among them.
Now I understand why Obama being born in Kenya made it into your belief system, despite it being physically impluasible (requiring around 5 days and five flights, most on propeller planes) and financially impossible (it would have cost about a year of her parents' combined salaries) for Stanley Ann & Obama Sr. to travel there for her to give birth. After all, Obama's Father was from Kenya, so if you are going to make up a myth about Obama being born abroad, what better place than Kenya?
Implausibilty, and even impossiblilty doesn't deter the making of myths if there is a strong emotional reason to believe them, as in this case.
What I don't understand is, of all possible places in Kenya, why make Mombassa the birthplace in your myth? If you look at the map of Kenya, it's on the other end of the country from Obama Sr.'s village, 762 miles away, which would make it a minimum 2 day train ride. Probably longer, since Kenyan trains were very fast in 1961.
I suppose you could argue that there were no hospitals in Obama's village, so they had to travel to a major city. But Nairobi was closer, and more modern.
So why Mombassa? Not only is it completely implausible; I don't see the emotional appeal. Why Mombasssa rather than his father's village? Or why Mombassa rather than Nairobi?
Help me out here, birthers. Why do you reserve this special place for Mombassa in your belief system?
show me where an official agency or court has said it is not.
This does not include testimony by some internet armchair “expert”.
if you can provide creditable information that would hold up in court to this effect, then do so.
Otherwise this is just internet rumor mongering by so-called “experts” that wouldn’t know an official document from a hole in their a—
Prove to us, that it’s legit.
why? I am only doing this to show how weak some of this nonsense is. It looks silly to me, like grassy knoll politics.
Sorry, that is not your argument
YOU said that plane travel wa too difficult
It would be as difficult for 0bama sr as it would be for the little misses
so answer the question!
Why do you ask??? Are you guys taking orders now??? Do you have a menu we can choose from and a price list???
Nearly five hundred posts in this thread, and I think Sven was the only person to actually take a stab at identifying the origin of ‘Mombasa’ in the eligibility narrative. And no, it was not a “mystery Imam” who started the Mombasa rumor.
You want the real origin? In June 2008, Wayne Madsen of Online Journal wrote:
“In this case, it is a birth certificate from the Kenyan city of Mombasa registering the birth of Barack Obama Jr. on August 4, 1961. However, the registration is a common practice in African countries whose citizens abroad have families with foreign nationals. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to his mother Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas and Barack Obama, Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya.”
Madsen further claimed that right-wing media outlets would suggest that Obama was Constitutionally barred from the Presidency due to a birth in Mombasa, Kenya. Madsen wrote that the GOP operatives would produce a Mombasa birth certificate showing Obama’s birth mother to be a “light-skinned Kenyan Arab woman,” as well as photographs showing a very unpregnant Ann Dunham on a Waikiki beach the month before his birth.
Obviously, none of these predictions actually came true. No GOP “dirty tricks operatives” (Madsen’s term) ever produced a Mombasa birth certificate, no beach photographs of an unpregnant Ann ever materialized, and the “light-skinned Kenyan Arab woman” rumor never happened.
Now, it’s very evident from reading Madsen’s articles that he’s simply sharing untrue rumors that he believes Republicans would be using in the future. Madsen makes it abundantly clear that he doesn’t actually believe Obama was born in Kenya, much less in Mombasa.
Madsen’s mention of Mombasa didn’t attract much of any attention until Phil Berg cited it in his August 2008 complaint, saying:
“Wayne Madsen, Journalist with Online Journal was a contributing writer and published an article on June 9, 2008 stating the GOP sent a research team to Mombasa, Kenya and located a Certificate Registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr. at a Maternity Hospital, to his father, a Kenyan Citizen and his mother, a U.S. Citizen.”
THAT is where the idea of a Mombasa birthplace came from. From a story about nasty campaign rumors written by a guy who didn’t believe them.
It’s also worth noting that despite the common belief to the contrary, Sarah Obama never named Mombasa as the supposed city of birth. Not even in error.
Here is the first time in the entire McRae conversation that “Mombasa” is mentioned, followed by the translator’s response:
MCRAE: When I come in December. I would like to come by the place, the hospital, where he was born. Could you tell me where he was born? Was he born in Mombasa?
OGOMBE: No, Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America.
It may have been my post describing my brother’s traveling to Pakistan at that time with an optometric group. His group were allowed into Pakistan, but had a delgate meet them at the airport in order to pass through customs as entering Americans. I’m not aware of there ever being an outright ban on travel to Pakistan.
I find it interesting that so many people who like to say his grandmother said he was born in Kenya don’t like to mention that was the result of mis-translation and confusion during the conversation. She corrects herself immediately.
She tries to correct McRae several times after that (when he is clearly trying to trap the old woman) and tells him Obama was not born in Kenya
The State of Hawaii also confirmed that Sun Yet Sen was born there by issuing him a birth certificate. Ya know, it's curious why you people never respond when this is brought up.
Sun Yat Sen was dead for over 30 years before Hawaii even became a state.
I don’t why any birth certificate (apparently issued at the turn of the century) he may have had would be relevant, considering it was so long before the period in question.
I find it similarly interesting that although folks try to insist that the translators pressured Sarah Obama to change her answer, McRae’s own man on the scene, the pseudonymous “Reverend Shuhubia,” never interjects during the conversation to say that her statements are being misrepresented.
You’d think if the translators were repeatedly ignoring her clear statements that Barack was born in Kenya (as claimed in his unsigned, unnotarized affidavit), he would’ve actually spoken up to say so on the tape.
Parsley playing with "fire"!!!
We are still waiting for your answer to post 460???
thank you Loren. You are a voice of reason in a sea of birther nonsense.
That’s a great point. In order to get a Hawaiian certificate of birth, Sun Yat Sen only need to fill out and sign an affadavit, IIRC. When Chiyome Fukino says she saw vital records verifying Obama was born in Hawaii, she’s most likely talking about these same kinds of affadavits, as she wouldn’t need to do so if the original birth certificate proved Obama was born in Hawaii. The Sun Yat Sen example shows that such affadavits can be accepted as truthful even when they aren’t.
Most of the procedures for registering births were carried over from Hawaii’s territorial days.
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