After a shot heard round the Birtherverse concerning an old publisher’s brochure stating Obama was born in Kenya, Brietbart News has now taken on another cherished birther myth: that Barack Obama didn’t really attend Columbia College. They found a public list of graduates from 1983. Was Barack Obama on it, and if so was he listed as the foreign student, Barry Soetoro?
Well, of course he was on it under his real name. Did I have to ask?
Contrary to some conspiracy theories, Obama was a student within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences–not the less selective, “nontraditional” Columbia University School of General Studies (which only merged with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1990).
However, the conspiracy theory was never that Barack Obama didn’t graduate from Columbia; it was that he never attended Columbia, and that his degree was awarded as a favor to the CIA, because Obama was really in Pakistan funneling arms to the Taliban (which didn’t exist in the 1980’s) for the CIA.
This does shoot down the myth that Obama attended Occidental College under the name Barry Soetoro, because he transferred to Columbia, and his name is Obama there.
Commenters at Brietbart News are none too happy about the new “Vetting” of Obama series:
WELCOME TO THE "LETTING" OF BARRY SOTERO…..BY THE FORMER BREITBART WEBSITE NEWS TEAM….HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!!
and
love the strategy, Breitbart gang . . .
1. Post lots of stories about Obama’s birthplace.
2. Keep the media focused on everything but the economy.
Hey, works for me. And finally,
What is the evidence? A picture of a pice (sic) of paper? Is it unusual Obama is at the end of the list and not between names? What does this mean if it isn’t official? And who runs this site, doing an obvious disinformation job while posing under right cover? Why did this site claim the published biography is proof of only a mistake instead of what is more likely? Be very frightened of your country now that it has murdered so much for this secret!
Why can’t birthers just find people who matriculated with President Obama at various institutions and have them testify? They don’t even need to go that far, just find someone who attended the same college during the same years and show, record by record, what’s available for one person but not for Obama.
Because they get a soothing feeling (however fleeting) from pretending that Obama isn’t eligible. It’s like drug. It’s their lazy-ass, idea of getting “politically involved.” Plus, they can’t bring themselves to actually support Romney because they hate him.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
The pres could present the original LFBC but doesn’t. It’s fraud or bad faith; take your pick!
The festering controversies demonstrate his incredible incompetence and multiple failures as a lawyer, a leader, and a man’s man.
“present the original”?????
buffoon, where is YOUR “ORIGINAL”?
there is but ONE ORIGINAL and it is retained by the locality in which you were born
beyond that, there are CERTIFIED COPIES
due to the full faith and credit clause in the constitution, EVERY STATE SHALL recognize the certified copy
It’s time for the Birthers to “present” some evidence (anything) that the president was born outside the US. Put up or shut up.
Perhaps reading some of obama’s poetry could calm everybody down.
shink along with o:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-barrieanthony/obamas-poetry_b_44271.html
When Brietbart was alive he said that birtherism was the stupidest thing he’s ever heard of.
last week, Sidney Barthwell, Jr came forward
he was a classmate of both romney & obama
of romney: “He was skinny. He wasn’t an athlete; he wasn’t a leader of the class. At the time, he was not considered one of the top scholars at the school,” Barthwell said, adding that he thinks the hair cutting incident is being blown out of proportion. “It was an unfortunate incident obviously, but I don’t think that it would end up being as dastardly as it has been portrayed.”
of obama: “We worked together on a law review at Harvard,” Barthwell said. “Barack was from Chicago, I was from Detroit and that was back in the days of the Bad Boys (Detroit Pistons) so I used to ride Barack about (the Chicago Bulls).”
“Barack was a very, very nice guy; a very smart guy. In a city full of upright people, he really stood out as being an exceptionally intelligent man,” Barthwell said. “I’ve never heard a bad thing come out of that man’s mouth and I haven’t yet.”
I got a kick out of this:
“Is it unusual Obama is at the end of the list and not between names?”
.
looking at the list, it is obvious to an intelligent person that the list is alphabetical by last name (m,n,o), are birthers just stupid?
I love this comment:
“I was an undergrad at Columbia from the Fall of 1980 until 1985. I remember seeing Barack Obama posters for the Black Students Union and other such radical organizations in dorm elevators.
Most of my friends were in the class of 1983. George Stephanopoulos was in that class. Obama was admitted as a transfer student as a junior, one of two known easier “back doors” into the prestigious Ivy League undergrad College. The other way (typically for students who didn’t do very well on their English SATs) was to be admitted into the Engineering school and then to take Core Curriculum College courses during one’s Freshman year and the transfer.
Obama graduated in the final semester that Columbia was still all-male, furthering speculation that he never had a normal 21-year-old’s interest in females. Did he have ANY girlfriends while at Columbia, composite or otherwise? ”
—-
1. Black Student Union is “radical”?
2. So he lived in an all-male dorm. Wow. It means he isn’t into women.. why? I mean, it sounds like he might have had some morals… wow..
“shink along with o”
Admitting you have a problem is the first step.
“For a hug, as I shink,* my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; ’cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop’s black-framed glasses
And know he’s laughing too.”
O.K. Now what’s your point?
Guess the poets:
As Putin rears his head
And comes into the air space of the United States of America
Where, where do they go
It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border
~ ?
I hear the voices
And I read the front page
But I’m The Decider
And I decide what is best
~ ?
stephanopolous?
The e-mail incorrectly claims that ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos was a classmate of Obama. They were both students at Columbia for about one academic year, but Stephanopoulos was a year ahead. Obama received his degree in 1983, while Stephanopoulos received his a year earlier, according to a university press release. Neither of them were “class of 1984,” as the message incorrectly claims.
The message recycles — and exaggerates to the point of falsification — some attacks that were raised in the heat of the 2008 presidential campaign.
girlfriends? i guess YOU MISSED the excerpts from the new book by David Maraniss “Barack Obama: The Story”
all male dorm? columbia did not admit women until 1983
Obama received his degree in 1983
his poetry? T.S. Eliot Scholars Give High Marks to Obama’s Analysis
http://news.yahoo.com/t-eliot-scholars-high-marks-obamas-analysis-210432851–abc-news-politics.html
So it would seem.
Any word from them on some good lottery numbers?
The PBS documentary series “Frontline” did a series of interviews with Barack Obama’s Harvard Law School colleagues. Of particular interest is the fourth interview in the series by Bradford Berenson, one of the few conservative law students at Harvard at that time.
Berensen went on to be Deputy White House Counsel in the George W. Bush administration:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/obama/harvard.html
Here’s an excerpt from the Bradford Berenson interview: “You don’t become president of the Harvard Law Review, no matter how political, or how liberal the place is, by virtue of affirmative action, or by virtue of not being at the very top of your class in terms of legal ability. Barack was at the very top of his class in terms of legal ability. He had a first-class legal mind and, in my view, was selected to be President of the Harvard Law Review entirely on his merits.”
rove told greta that one of HIS DEPUTIES helped obama get elected to law review
rove in response to assertions by trump:
You know, nobody knows him in college? One of my White House deputies was a classmate of Barack Obama’s at Harvard and helped get him elected the Law Review editor.
That Rove deputy was Bradford Berenson, quoted above. His full statement about Obama at Harvard Law is a revelation, coming as it does from a conservative Republican.
I don’t feel like looking it up, but I’m pretty sure that Obama lived in an off-campus apartment while he was a student at Columbia. Not that it matters.
Yale became co-ed in 1969. George W. Bush graduated in 1968.
i have quoted berenson numerous times before before – berenson was a former top lawyer in the White House counsel’s office and not a rove deputy
For the same reason none of them went to look at the paper COLB when it was available at the campaign office and instead they were just whining that they can’t see a paper copy and it’s just a picture on the internet.
“Why can’t birthers just find people who matriculated with President Obama at various institutions and have them testify?”
testify for WHAT?
that they went to school with him?
in what forum would they be called to testify?
on what grounds?
if he were home-schooled and had NO CLASSMATES, would he be INELIGIBLE ?
Memories of Barack Obama
Birthers claim that no one from Obama’s past has come forward saying they knew him. Where are the pictures? Where are the interviews with his friends, his teachers? Why does no one remember him growing up? It’s as if he burst on the scene with no past.
Like everything else Birther, this meme is easily debunked.
http://www.thefogbow.com/special-reports/people-remember-president-obama/friends/#Hawaii%201
Here this should help,
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/recollections-of-obamas-ex-roommate/
There are images from the student directory that show his off campus address.
And yet he’s President of the United States, and you’re an anonymous piece of nothingness.
Go figure!
Oh, I dunno. I thought there were people who had some kind of litigation in flight, so they’d be the ones to ask.
I imagine that somebody who is opposed to President Obama’s candidacy could, on their own, make sworn depositions about whatever topic they’d like and make them public.
The fact that nobody has done so indicates for me that there’s no interest.
sworn statements that they were obama’s classmates?
i previously posted a link to NUMEROUS classmates
last week, a man came forward who was a classmate of BOTH romney & obama
rove’s deputy was a classmate who helped obama get elected to law review
one of bush’s white house counsel, bradford berenson, was a classamate and had an extensive interview with pbs
i don’t seem to recall classmates of ANY OTHER candidate or pres/vp, etc who have been called to testify about ANYTHING
CERTAINLY with all of the litigation you mentioned, why haven’t the birthers subpoenaed classmates?
(i can hear their laughter FROM HERE)
I relish the prospect of giving them ideas. Orly, don’t you read this forum?
the ditz is still after arpaio and his frozen posse to testify
FAT CHANCE!!!!!
Couldn’t they just shut up?
I think that having an actual classmate of Obama’s up in the testimony box would be a little rough on Birther’s psyches, what with the “never went to the school” meme in full farce, err, force.
After some thought, I have concluded that Breitbart News is doing an amateurish job of vetting Barack Obama and should probably go into some other line of business.
The first article showed a publisher’s brochure that says Obama was born in Kenya. An accurate headline would be “Publisher makes mistake” something about as newsworthy as “Dog bites man.” The article, I suppose, meant the reader to think that Barack Obama put out a fake biography, but the publicist who wrote the article stated that Obama didn’t, which just makes Breitbart News look like a tabloid for whom fact checking is an unnecessary expense.
The second article says that they did a good job checking the conspiracy theory that Obama didn’t graduate from Columbia University, while the mainstream media sat on their hands. Wow another earth shattering real headline: “Obama graduated from the University everybody says he did.” The real problem is that the conspiracy theory was never that Obama didn’t graduate from Columbia University — that’s a public fact. The conspiracy theory is that he never attended Columbia University, but was actually in Pakistan funneling arms to the Taliban (which didn’t exist in the 1980’s) for the CIA and that Columbia University awarded him a degree as a CIA cover. Birthers say: “why does no one remember Obama from Columbia?” (they do). So Breitbart News debunked a straw man and added nothing to public knowledge about Barack Obama.
Obama conspiracy theories is an arcane discipline and folks shouldn’t go mucking around in it unless they are willing to spend the time and do their homework. Breitbart News isn’t taking the story seriously, and is just wasting everybody’s time.
When I mentioned my mother’s alzheimer in my last comment on the other thread, I was serious. My mom started having delusional beliefs that no facts could shake years before she was correctly diagnosed (after an MRI of the brain).
Now I’m thinking that exhibiting such cognitive dissonance might indicate at least a propensity towards becoming the victim of alzheimer’s later in life.
Another angle: Since we can identify people who were in school with President Obama, then let’s see their records. They are public, right? It’s only President Obama’s records that are improperly hidden, right? We should be able to get everything, starting from kindergarten records all the way through Harvard Law, right? Or have all of Obama’s classmates spent OMG MILLIONS to keep this information hidden as well?
I wonder if he were still alive, Breitbart would have quashed the latest “bombshells.” Getting to close to the political third rail of “Birtherism” can have a negative effect, even to the professional political operative. Quality political smears require a grain of truth that can be led through the various smear campaigns to create some sense of plausibility. Birther conspiracies have nothing and I suspect Breitbart knew that quite well and so, did not want it anywhere near him.
All states keep the original birth records. All. What is available are certified copies. Asking for something that isn’t possible and claiming the failure to provide it is “fraud or bad faith” indicates either ignorance, malice or both.
First, Chef, before you can take this any further, you would have to provide evidence that he in fact possesses “the original LFBC.” I have seen nothing to suggest that this document is in his possession, and I hold a reasonable belief that it was retained by the state’s vital records office, and may not have been preserved as an original paper document, but in the form of generational copies or even microforms. In any case, it is the State that certifies the facts of a vital record. The certification by the state is the thing that matters. Any document may be evidence of that certification, but the paper is not the certification, and the certification is not the fact itself.
Breitbart News?
I thought Obama killed him off already.
I’ve had a similar conversation at fogbow.
I’m not sure what birthers would actually expect to see if they ever got the sought after access to the vaults (which of course won’t happen). Birthers always seem to assume there is an “original” birth certificate, identical to the issued certified copies, sitting in State’s vital record files. I don’t think there ever is such a thing. By definition a document with birth information on it is not a “birth certificate” until it has the authorised signature, date and raised seal added. I very much doubt that the birth records in State Vital records Depts include copies of all certified birth certificates issued (whether shortly after birth or in later years on receiving requests) complete with have raised seals.
i could be very wrong but I’d bet pretty large that Hawaii does not in fact have in its possession now an “original” of the certified copy lfbc’s (two of them) which were specially prepared and handed over to Obama in April 2011. I very much doubt that they prepared a third one, had it signed, dated and added a raised seal to it and retained it.
In fact I’d probably also bet that Hawaii doesn’t have any “original birth certificate” in their files for anyone born in 1961. What they have on their files are the original birth records (consisting of two pages for 1961 apparently, or the electronic equivalent of what was two pages).
Given his work experience Doc’s comments on this would be interesting.
I have made this argument as well. Doc tells us that in the industry, the original record is indeed referred to as an “original Birth Certificate”. It may well be that departmental procedures refers to it as such but I would say that that is just ‘short hand’ jargon like any discipline uses internally (unless legislation refers to it that way, and then I would say it is lazy legislators, but that is my problem).
Doc will of course correct my impression, he is clearly our captive subject matter expert on this kind of stuff. 😎
I do not doubt that y’all are correct, but I don’t think it matters to the birther crowd. I divide them into three groups.
Group 1 believes Obama was born in Hawaii but that he is not eligible for the presidency as he is not an NBC, as required by the cryptic, yet clearly stated, two-parent requirement set forth in the Constitution, which only true patriots understand, as they are armed with their Founders’ Decoder Ring, handed down from generation to generation in only the most worthy families.
Group 2 believes the BCs Obama released are forgeries or are somehow lacking and they are looking for Hawaii to make an official pronouncement as to the circumstances of Obama’s birth, if that is indeed possible. Ideally, this would be in the form of a presser with an authorized official of Hawaii which begins with a short video presentation of said official, wearing a “helmet-cam” while simultaneously being filmed from three different angles, as they walk into the vault containing the state’s official birth records. Following that, an armored truck would arrive on the scene from which uniformed state troopers emerge, carrying a locked steal box which they deposit on the podium. The official would then remove a key from an hermetically-sealed container and open the locked box, removing certified copies of Obama’s long form birth certificate, prepared especially for the audience as authorized by a one-time exemption to Hawaii’s vital records laws, passed by their legislature exclusively for the event. Then, once the official has sworn an oath, they would answer any and all questions under penalty of perjury from those in attendance, which includes representatives from each state, federal republican officials, journalists, and the public at large.
Group 3 is skeptical.