This is another one of the birth certificate posts that was deleted along with the *
* posts.
March 15, 2009
I looked in the drafts to find other people like CNN’s Mark Preston, who wrote articles blasting the conspiracist racists, right-wingers, disgruntled Hillaryites and tinfoil hat-wearing nutjob birthers. It is amusing to see them go into great detail about the nuttos and never once ponder: Why doesn’t he just show it?
Ben Smith of Politico is just one more. I’ll quote his own words so you can see for yourself:
SMITH: Out of the gaze of the mainstream and even the conservative media is a flourishing culture of advocates, theorists and lawyers, all devoted to proving that Barack Obama isn’t eligible to be president of the United States.
First of all, the premise is not that he isn’t eligible. It is that he hasn’t proven he is eligible.
And it is based on the common sense curiosity it seems only the unhinged fringe possess: Why?
Why does he continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars resisting efforts to compel he prove he is eligible to hold the Office of President as stipulated by the Constitution?
The question as to why the media hasn’t forced him to do so is one that defies logic and will be the one never forgiven by time…just like Iraq.
The criteria is straightforward. Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
barry is clearly older than 35 and has been a resident for more than 14 years - but he has not clearly proven he is a natural born citizen.
That is what he is being asked to do.
Period.
And it is nothing a self-proclaimed Constitutional “law professor”, Agent of Change and Man of Transparency should be compelled to do.
He has not been transparent at the most fundamental level and he continues to tout that his administration is the most transparent ever!
What does that say about his (lack of) character? His integrity? And what does it say about the media that they continue to let him claim it?
Secondly, no one is “Out of the gaze of the mainstream and even the conservative media” or limited to “weird little internet sites”.
The media is and has been choosing to look the other way - just like they did with Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, ACORN, Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich. Oh yes. Blagojevich was there from the start - as far back as when barry and his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel were enthusiastically campaigning for him. Tony Rezko is the direct link between blago and barry and is the reason why barry’s own governor was never interviewed, why he never stumped for barry, why he was banned from barry’s $2 million Chicago taxpayer party in Grant Park and why Mayor Daley handled the Convention farce. And all of it took place before Blagojevich was arrested for allegedly selling barry’s senate seat. Before the media woke up to the corruption that is Chicago politics from whence came pure as the driven snow barry.
How can the media take themselves seriously?
For the record, the truth is closer to Burris buying the seat directly from barry.
How much coverage did Politico give to Tony Rezko’s trial? How accountable did they hold barry to his lies about Rezko fundraising? How much have we heard about the subpoenas of barry, Valerie Jarrett and Rahm Emanuel?
Who is asking Ben LaBolt how many millions of dirty money he has had to dispense with?
And the “birthers” are not a flourishing culture of whatever. They are American citizens who can reason, who value The Constitution, and who are not under the spell of the obamessiah.
In other words, they don’t have what’s left of their journalistic integrity riding on barry’s lies.
And as much as the media is choosing to ignore them (save ridicule) - they are ever under the watchful eye of Google, Facebook, Technorati and subject to cyberattacks by the army of barrybotletss. Hell, maybe even under direct surveillance by FISA advocate barry himself.
SMITH: Viewed as irrelevant by the White House, and as embarrassing by much of the Republican Party, the subculture still thrives from the conservative website WorldNetDaily, which claims that some 300,000 people have signed a petition demanding more information on Obama’s birth, to Cullman, Alabama, where Sen. Richard Shelby took a question on the subject at a town hall meeting last week.
Viewed by the White House as irrelevant. Ha-ha. How else would they view it?
But why is the spineless media viewing it as irrelevant?
Why don’t they have the least bit of curiosity - outside the fact that if barry were to be proven ineligible every one of their careers would be exposed as irrelevant?
SMITH: Their confinement to the fringe hasn’t cooled the passion of believers…
Fringe? I resent that, as do my fellow citizens here.
It’s perfectly clear which “fringe” needs confinement, owing to their delusional devotion to a man they don’t know, whose words they blindly trust and whose halo they resist denting.
How can they remain so gullible? Where is their journalistic curiosity? Do they still believe his teleprompter words after all of his “refinements“?
Chuckie T was quick to wake up to barry’s obamanating his answers (something he has been doing since day one as a politician), when it involved Chuckie looking like a “virginal” idiot.
Do they still believe barry’s claim of “transparency” after they discovered his bills weren’t being exposed to the 5 days of “Sunlight before Singing”?
Do they still believe his claim of “superior judgment” after his selection of 5 tax cheats - one a purported “financial wizard”, who cheated on his taxes and then tried to blame it on TurboTax, who cheated on his taxes even after he was audited, who cheated on his taxes until he was forced to pay them to get his appointment to head the IRS and who just happened to be head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank while Bernie Madoff was making off right in his neighborhood?
Leave the market alone! they scream. With good reason.
And how can they possibly still believe barry when he switched his position on Iraq–the very reason why he got the nomination?
Like always, he picked the middle choice and found a reason to justify it and the proobamedia were more than happy to accept it. Or as Hilary Rosen said, “processed it“.
What type of gullible is that - even for card carrying cult members?
Now here is where Mr Smith jumps into the deep end of gullibility - or in honor of the truly exasperated fringed birthers - ignorance.
SMITH: A quick reality check, before we dive in: The challenges to Obama’s eligibility have no grounding in evidence. Courts across the country have summarily rejected the movement’s theory — that Obama can’t be a citizen because his father wasn’t —as a misreading of U.S. law; and Hawaii officials, along with contemporary birth announcements, affirm that Obama was in fact born in Honolulu in 1961.
Reality check? Evidence? Summarily rejected?
Summarily rejected cases don’t make it to the Supreme Court to be distributed and conferenced - even if they are not heard.
What lower court judge is going to risk the angry bots and the proobamedia? They’ve seen what has been done to barry naysayers. Reelection beats fending off barama matthews.
And how many judges are as clueless as Judge Surrick, who said barry “underwent excessive vetting during what was one of the most hotly contested presidential primary [sic] in living memory.” Or Judge Robertson who based his decision in part on Twitter.
And the cases have been thrown out but because a regular citizen doesn’t have “standing” to compel barry to produce proof - not because barry was proven to be eligible. It never got to actual evidence.
SURRICK: Ordinary citizens can’t sue to ensure that a presidential candidate actually meets the constitutional requirements of the office. [Congress could determine] that citizens, voters, or party members should police the Constitution’s eligibility requirements for the Presidency. Until that time, voters do not have standing to bring the sort of challenge that Plaintiff attempts to bring.
And in the latest ruling, Keyes v Bowen Judge Michael Kenny said the Secretary of State and Electors had no duty to make barry produce it.
Birth announcements?
barry’s grandmother could get a Certification of Live Birth (COLB) - which is not a birth CERTIFICATE - with just her word that barry was born and without any corroboratable evidence of where (including state and country), when, how or by whom - as long as she could prove that barry’s mother had resided in Hawaii for the year previous to his birth.
Nobody even knows what hospital barry was born in - even in Hawaii.
And no birth announcement in a newspaper from 1961 is going to prove anything. It’s like heresay. The fact that it is cited as proof proves Mr Smith’s own lunacy.
If he had a kid come up to him and say ‘You’re my daddy, you need to pay child support’ and the kid handed him a newspaper birth notice with “Ben Smith” written as the father, would he open his wallet and pay up?
So why should a soldier have to pull the trigger without proof positive that barry is in fact Constitutionally eligible to order them to do so?
What kind of Commander in Chief would allow brave Americans, who volunteered to defend his wife and children, to wonder about the legitimacy of their actions?
What kind of man orders young Americans into battle - some to a certain death - without respecting them enough to answer their one and only question?
Just ponder that.
That is really and truly all they are asking for.
Tell me why their lives are not worth a $6 piece of paper?
And then tell me why the media, who insisted barry allow caskets be photographed, not want to do everything in their power to keep that soldier from hesitating, which might very well mean another casket to photograph?
SMITH:…a recent survey showed, 34 percent of the public believes in UFOs….
Including barry endorser Jimmy Carter.
SMITH: But the thriving birth-obsessed fringe also poses political risks and opportunities for the Obama White House, coming as it does after a campaign that devoted a substantial effort to rebutting another, now fading, myth — that Obama is a Muslim who would insist on being sworn in on the Koran.
Political risks and opportunities for a White House (and media) who finds it irrelevant?
And so what if he were Muslim and swore himself in on the Koran? His campaign did not devote any effort to it anyway. They accused the Clinton camp and the proobamedia handled the rest. And then David Singleton decided to make a name for himself by claiming someone at a McCain/Palin rally yelled “kill him”, which never happened, and the media was off again. barry himself lied about it by announcing it to the entire nation during the last debate and it was his own Secret service who proved the allegation was bogus. And most of the media still believes it happened.
SMITH: The risk, of course, is the growth of a segment of the population, however small, that views the president as illegitimate.
However small. Ha-ha. Elected officials are getting so much grief from their constituents they are saying things out loud. Newly elected Rep Posey has gone one further and introduced the barry birth certificate bill that would require future presidential candidates to prove they are eligible.
Again - barry is viewed as having not proved he is legitimate. The ball is in his court - as it always has been. He could put an end to all of this by producing that one document. He is causing the risk and he is providing the opportunities. Period. He has no one to blame but himself.
“Some individuals and groups who are opposed to Obama’s presidency want an ‘acceptable’ reason to cite to convince other individuals and groups who might be on the fence to join in their way of thinking,” said Patricia Turner, who studies rumors at the University of California, Davis. “The notion that his presidency is actually in violation of the Constitution has a fundamentally patriotic appeal.”
Oh Dear God. Studies rumors? How much time did he spend getting these quotes? Why doesn’t he just get his coworker Jonathan Martin to ask about it during the daily press briefing? You’ll get all the confirmation you need once Gibbs’ head starts sweating. And you can’t label something a rumor unless it has been proven to be one and that will never happen unless barry produces proof.
SMITH:…that the Birthers may discredit Obama’s more mainstream enemies.
Who in the mainstream is not a friend of barry? If one existed, barry would have been vetted. Remember, it’s not just his birth certificate - it’s his school records and his medical records and everything else the press hasn’t demanded. Instead we get articles like Mr Smith’s taking about things he doesn’t know and getting quotes from rumor experts.
Fringe??
SMITH: The conservative talk show host Michael Medved recently referred to the movement’s leaders as “crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitative, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters” who are “the worst enemy of the conservative movement.” It makes us look weird. It makes us look crazy. It makes us look demented. It makes us look sick, troubled, and not suitable for civilized company,” he mourned.
Mourned? Just look at the words this Medved used. One might wonder if it takes one to know one. Worst enemies of the conservative movement? Where does that put abortion doctors, serial killers and pedophiles? Ten bucks he voted for barry. And why is he taking credit for all the fringian birthers? Phil Berg is a card carrying democrat. Alan Keyes created his own party.
SMITH: One of the lead anti-Obama lawyers…
It’s always anti-Obama. Anyone who does not worship at the feet of the obamessiah, anyone who listens to his words and actually checks out the inconsistencies aka lies is anti-barry. Just like folks who voted for McCain were voting against barry. Whatever their rhetoric, they are pro-Constitution, which is the crux of the matter.
SMITH: The White House is, presently, ignoring the birth certificate questions, having released an official copy of the Hawaii certificate during the presidential campaign. The press aide once tasked with quashing viral rumors, Ben LaBolt, no longer follows the fringe. But lawyers for the Democratic National Committee and for Obama have been steadily batting down a stream of lawsuits, winning motions to dismiss the suits in courts from Pennsylvania to Hawaii, from the state level to the United States Supreme Court.
Again, they did not release a BIRTH CERTIFICATE. They did not release an OFFICIAL COPY OF A BIRTH CERTIFICATE - Hawaiian or otherwise. They did not release anything - let alone an official copy of something. They gave a copy of a COLB - purportedly barry’s own - to his allies kos, factcheck and then politifact. They did not, have not, and will not release it to anyone else to examine it. Why?
Would Mr Smith rely on a birth notice in a newspaper or a copy of a non birth certificate or even an actual birth certificate to establish paternity? Would the word of his alleged son’s two friends be enough? Or would he go straight to DNA?
SMITH: Kreep has been battling Obama’s California lawyer, Fredric Woocher, to release the president’s records from Occidental College on the theory that they might provide information about his citizenship. Woocher has threatened to seek sanctions against Kreep for pursuing the case.
“This suit, like all of the others that have been filed challenging Obama’s qualifications for the Presidency, is frivolous,” he said in an email to POLITICO, adding that he is, in fact, working pro bono. “There is absolutely no truth to the stories about the untold millions supposedly being paid to us,” he said.
And Michael Strumwasser? And Amy ? And their process servers? Paralegals and secretaries? Who is paying for their travel? Their lodging? Their meals? They’re not billing barry for any of the hours they conference? What about copying and cost of court filings? This has been going on since August 2008. barry has been paying since then.
And what about barry’s main lawyer Robert Bauer? How much has he made off barry? The post Mr Smith copied from Kenneth Vogel said Bauer made $1.5M since 2005. He’s made way more than that this election alone. And then there’s the pay to play aspect. barry appointed Bauer lawyer for the Democratic party and Bauer’s wife was a barry advisor during the campaign. So Mr Smith can fantasize all he likes - barry is shelling out money and his lawyers are getting paid - including pro bono Wooten.
SMITH: The state’s governor, Linda Lingle, has attested to the authenticity of the birth certificate…
When did this happen?
SMITH: The suits share a vague, underlying notion that Obama must be some sort of foreigner, probably Kenyan, Indonesian or British, though none have any evidence or a coherent narrative to support the claim.
Again, the notion is and always will be - he has not proven he is a natural born citizen. Period. The conclusion that one might come to, since he will not produce his birth certificate, is that he is either foreign born or gave up his citizenship. There wasn’t a spontaneous uprising - barry’s a foreigner! The questions came about because he refused to provide any records, including his birth certificate.
SMITH: Others imagine that Obama was smuggled into the country as an infant, a claim contradicted by state records and contemporaneous birth announcements in two Honolulu papers.
Smuggled? What are these “state records”? Passport records? Or is he back to the COLB? And of course they would be contemporaneous announcements - whether real or fraudulent.
More quotes - this time an expert on urban legends. No kidding.
SMITH: David Emery, an expert on urban legends who writes for About.com, said the citizenship rumor has been fueled by an unusually “deep well of revulsion toward Barack Obama himself, and rage.”
Now this just ticks me off. How does Emery possibly know this? Sounds like the expert just voiced his own urban legend.
SMITH: “Thanks to the relentless agitation of the conspiracy theorists and the sheer quantity of hypothetical scenarios and legal arguments floating around, they’ve clearly succeeded in planting unreasonable doubts in reasonable people’s minds,” he said.
Where in this article or anywhere else has anyone, just once, proven that it is unreasonable to have doubts about barry’s refusal to produce his birth certificate? About his refusal to release any of his other records? Especially since he claims to be transparent?
At minimum, he is a liar.
What is beyond unreasonable is how folks automatically assume he has nothing to hide and that people are out to get him.
What do they know about him outside of his own words? How much verifiable proof of what he has said have they found?
What about the alleged “ambush attack” and violent racial awakening 9 y/o barry had while looking at pictures of a black man, who had tried to “peel off his skin” so he could pass as white? Compelling story - great for his narrative - good visuals for a movie - only the pictures never existed…in LIFE as he originally wrote or in Ebony which he said next or anywhere else. And you know his people looked. The best they could come up with was an ad for skin lightening cream in TIME, with no associated pictures of a man with peeled off skin.
That single lie is all one needs. He lied about the most fundamental moment in his life. And not just once. He mentioned it twice in his book and then at least twice more trying to defend it. The exact moment of his enlightenment as to who he is was a fairy tale.
Why take him at face value? Why believe anything he has to say? How does one know if there is a coat in the closet unless one looks? And if neither party has looked, how can one assume it is unreasonable to assume that there may not be one?
The fundamental question is why the media takes barry at his word.
Second to that is why they never wonder why he doesn’t keep it.
And third is why don’t they press him on it?
SMITH: But, ignored by the left and the mainstream media and dismissed by the courts, the citizenshp movement find its bitterest disappointments coming from the right.
Are the left and mainstream media two separate entities? And the bitterest disappointment is barry himself. The man asking Americans to pitch in and begin a new era of responsibility won’t own up to his most fundamental Constitutional duty as president: proving he is eligible.
SMITH: Tom Fitton [president of Judicial Watch] said he hadn’t “seen any credible evidence Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen eligible for the presidency. If people understood better what the law is, I don’t think they’d be as concerned as they are,” he said.
Mr Fitton has not seen any credible evidence that barry is eligible and that is all people are asking for. They understand what the Constitution says and they are asking the president to prove he is eligible - not defend his ineligibility.
SMITH: Others have been less polite. Conservative bloggers regularly mock the “Birthers,” as they’re dismissively known
And how many times has he used “birthers”?
SMITH: The conspiracy theorists are “embarrassing and destructive” the conservative activist David Horowitz wrote recently.
All folks want is for barry to prove he is eligible. Nothing they should have to keep asking a supposed man of transparency to do.
The conspiracy theories come about because he hasn’t and refuses to do so. He is the one feeding whatever conspiracy theories there might be and he is he only one who can dispel them and he refuses to.
Why?
If you could turn on the lights and make the cockroaches disappear - forever - would you keep the lights off and continue to walk around barefoot?
