Charles Kerchner really spins off the road and into a tree in his latest missive posted on Mario Apuzzo’s blog [the preceding hyperlink points to a saved copy of the article, since it has since been revised since the publication of this article] upon the theme of the Stanley Ann Dunham passport FOIA Documents. I daresay he will rewrite it after he reads this.
Before I get to what Kerchner says, let me briefly identify the documents under discussion:
- “P1” is a passport renewal application for Obama’s mother dated August 13, 1968, extending her passport until July of 1970.
- “P3” is an application for an amended passport to “change to read in married name.”
Look at what Kerchner says:
The record starts with a “RENEWAL” application filed in 1965 due [to] her name change after marrying Lolo Soetoro at Molokai Hawaii on March 15, 1965 per page marked “P3” of the released documents.
This is wrong in 3 ways:
- While the cover letter mentions an application from 1965 that could not be found, the renewal application is dated in 1968, 3 years after her marrying Lolo Soetoro. The document “P3” is not a renewal, but an amendment (look at the title of the form).
- The amendment (which is the “P3”) document appears to have been made in 1967 according to the hand-written notation on the right side, not 1965. 1965 is the date of the original passport application.
- The “P3” could not have been a renewal because according to the law at that time, a passport was good for three years and could be renewed only once for two additional years. Since the 1968 application (document labeled “P1”) was a renewal (it is so marked) the 1965 application three years earlier had to be an original application. The “P2” document states clearly that her passport (which apparently had expired the year before) was issued in 1965. Continue Reading →