No, not really. I’ve been thinking about writing that Wikileaks had the Obama birth certificate as a spoof article, but it seems someone has beaten me to the punch.
What I really wanted say briefly in this article is that big secrets are hard to keep. If President Obama really had been born in Kenya, we would have seen a credible document (not one with obvious factual errors), and someone who was in a position to know would have come forward.
Well said. There are dozens of journalists from many different countries living in Kenya and others visit regularly. There are hundreds of Americans living in Kenya and hundreds of diplomats from many countries, and in countries with divided governments like Kenya secrets leak like crazy. All that would be necessary to show would be a record of Obama’s mother arriving in Kenya, but that is said by birthers to be “sealed’ by the government of Kenya. In fact, all that would be necessary to show is a credible report (not WND) that such documents had been sealed, but the birthers allege that the news media have conspired not to confirm the sealing.
A record of entry to the U.S. would have been generated for the newborn Obama! But instead, they smuggled or bribed him past Customs and Immigration. Or maybe Obama’s operatives purloined it from the U.S. archives while Bush was president. International carriers make and keep passenger manifests, so there would be one in the BOAC or some other airlines’s archives. But the Men in Black went to the archives and substituted a doctored microfiche. Etc., etc. Likewise, if Obama had renounced his citizenship in Indonesia, a document would have been generated. But they purloined that, also. The Vast Conspiracy is all-powerful, except that the COLB and all pictures of Obama before 1996 are amateurish photoshop fakes done by David Axelrod’s teenage nephew.
Until and unless someone in the birther movement goes as far as making a criminal accusation of fraud against Fukino, Hawaii’s certification will stand.
Until and unless someone shows evidence that Barack Obama’s citizenship was conferred on him at some time after his birth, the premise that he is a natural born citizen stands (unless a claim could be supported that he is not a citizen *at all*).
To me, this is the alpha and the omega of the entire birther movement, and every bit of the birther lore that is not directly related to these two predicates is simply noise.
Is the certification (not the document, the certification itself) a fraud? Then prosecute the criminals. Can you show how Obama’s citizenship was conferred? Then show the evidence.
Nothing else could even be relevant. (I’m simply not going down any “two-citizen, UK-citizen-father” road, and neither is any other reasonable person.)
I think Bob Weber is being satirical, saterizing birthers with his talk about bribing officials and purloining official government documents.
Still, it is worth publishing these comments on the Kenya myth:
The National Review said: “The theory that Obama was born in Kenya, that he was smuggled into the U.S., and that his parents somehow hoodwinked Hawaiian authorities into falsely certifying his birth in Oahu, is crazy stuff.”
Andrew Walden, a conservative columnist in Hawaii put it very well. He said:
“For Obama to have been born in Kenya, Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. would have had to fly from Honolulu to Mombasa, give birth in a substandard third world hospital, fly back and then somehow arrange for a fraudulent birth certificate to be entered by the State of Hawai’i on August 8, 1961…In 1961, the roundtrip flight to Kenya would have been a very expensive, pointless, and time consuming epic journey for two starving students. Barack Obama Sr. had only been able to come study at UH Manoa with a free ticket on a donated charter flight with other Kenyan students.”
As for the Indonesia myth. That is easy to puncture. Simply call up the Indonesian Embassy in Washington and ask them whether Obama was ever a citizen of Indonesia. He wasn’t.
@Granite, Yes, I was being satirical.
Bob Weber.
Sorry, very sorry. It was the part about “amateurish photoshop fakes” that confused me. I have heard the same line from birthers very often.
> Until and unless someone in the birther movement goes as far as making a criminal accusation of fraud against Fukino, Hawaii’s certification will stand.
I have always wondered why, despite their complete absence of carefulness and decency when calling for “hanging the traitors” or a military coup, birthers have always avoided accusing Fukino directly. Can they be so raging mad, yet too scared to make accusations that might get them in jail at the same time?
Re: “accusations that might get them in jail at the same time?”
It would be libelous, meaning that it would cost lots of money in a libel suit, but I cannot see any criminal charge that would result from accusing her.
I figure that they are afraid of losing money. From their perspective this is too bad, because if they were to accuse Fukino of lying, and they were sued, most likely THEN they could get the original birth certificate, which would be necessary evidence in their defense. Unfortunately, the original would, of course, show that Obama was born in Hawaii and that Fukino was not lying. I suspect that this is why they don’t do it.
most likely not. as has been explained before, any admissible evidence in their defense that birfers may already have in hand could be allowed, but they don’t become entitled to go on a fishing trip into protected records.
seems to me somebody offered a million dollars for the original birth certificate . A copy was provided . Did they collect the million dollars ? Maybe not because the copy was proven to be a fake . There is no record of barrack Obama being a citizen of Indonesia . But was Barry Soweto a citizen of Indonesia ? Is there any court records of when and where Obama changed his name from Soweto to Obama . or Obama to Soweto . I think there a lot of questions about Obama that have never been answered by people that just don’t want to go there .