Is this the real October surprise?
Bookworm on Oct 11 2008 at 3:25 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama
It would be easy to dismiss this all as a tinfoil conspiracy but for one thing: Obama is clearly hiding something. If he were transparent about this whole thing, it would vanish in a second.
Related posts:
- I’d like to see this as a Democratic October surprise
- Questioning whether Hillary will be the October surprise
- The real Depression
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When this issue first arose, I thought it was an internet hoax. (Sorry SueK) But now I think, if so, why hasn’t BHO presented his birth cert? In 1970, I had to produce a “certified copy” of my birth cert to get hired at (a defense contractor); in 1975 I had to produce a “certified copy” of my birth certificate to get a passport. A couple years ago, in order to get a “realID” drivers license, I had to produce six proofs of citizenship.
But Obama, running for POTUS, doesn’t have to prove he’s eligible? What’s wrong with this picture????
I produced my birth certificate to get married, and to get jobs. I’ve repeatedly produced my kids’ BCs to get them into schools and on sports teams. I have multiple copies of my kids’ BCs in my safe because I’ve had to use them so often. It’s very bizarre that Obama won’t produce something like that — and it makes it more suspicious that he keeps his academic records so secret (b/c I had to produce my BC for my schools too, if I remember correctly).
This is one where, even if Berg is a crazy man, the simplest response is to open ones files and say, “Look inside.” That Obama is, instead, mounting a full battle is, if nothing else, weird.
One more thing, you’d think if there was a real birth certificate in Hawaii, some well-intentioned Obama-phile in the appropriate Hawaii department of records would anonymously release it. Nobody’s done that either.
Book,
“One more thing, you’d think if there was a real birth certificate in Hawaii, some well-intentioned Obama-phile in the appropriate Hawaii department of records would anonymously release it. Nobody’s done that either.”
It is even worse: the Obama campaign “official” site offered up a proven fake BC.
So, where (what court) do we go to establish eligibilty?
e.
I have always wondered, if there is substance to these allegations, why didn’t the Clintons leak the information to sink Obama during the primaries? The answer seems, I believe, that the black community would never forgive Hillary, making her unelectable.
We know the Clintons want to sink the Obama campaign. So if there is indeed anything to this Kenya or Indonesia material, I wonder if the Clintons are now leaking it, using the blogosphere first.
The next step would be to plant some stories in the British press. And so on.
However, at the end of the day there must be proof, in the form of documents and/or witnesses, to move this story forward.
As much as the election of Obama would do damage, I can’t imagine the destruction a fraud of this scope would do to our culture, respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Not to mention the feeling of betrayal among millions of well meaning if misguided Obama believers.
Obama’s fraud would top Elliot Spitzer’s hypocrisy. He would give new meaning to chutzpah.
There have also been claims that McCain isn’t eligible due to some citizenship technicality.
I can’t get worked up about this. It’s my understanding that courts in these types of cases will often leave it to the voters.
I suppose if there’s a rhetorical point, it’s that Obama has used procedural tricks to get opponents thrown off the ballet. If there’s any benefit to be had, I suspect it’s from educating people about how Obama got here…both from disqualifying opponents and through sealed information being released to the press about his opponents in a couple of cases.
But, end of the day, I can’t support a birthright requirement, and I don’t think this issue is going to help anyone, so hopefully not too much energy is expended on it.
If you really want to wade through some stuff, go here:
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/
I haven’t tried a search, so I don’t know how readily you can locate stuff, and in addition, a lot of very interesting stuff is in the comments, which makes really tedious – but it really does have a lot of trails and tracks that make for fascinating reading. Just a lot easier if you’ve been reading day by day…all at once might be a bit much!
The options seem to be:
a)He was born in Hawaii, but when adopted by Lolo Soetero became an Indonesian citizen. At that time Indonesia was a military dictatorship and unfriendly terms with the USA. Neither country recognized a dual citizenship status with the other, so if Obama was given Indonesian citizenship, he would have lost his US citizenship. If so, there is no indication it was reinstated. The “proof” that he was in fact an Indonesian citizen is that he attended school there. Apparently you have to be a citizen to attend school.
b)He was born in Hawaii, but his original birth certificate was sealed when he was adopted by Soetero, and a new certificate was issued in the name of Barry Soetero.
c)He was born in Kenya*. The campaign has recently admitted that he had a Kenyan citizenship, but stated that it was by virtue of his father’s citizenship, and was never activated, and “expired” in 1982 when he was 21, and had not claimed it. His relatives in Kenya say they witnessed his birth. There seem to be no hospital records to support his birth in Hawaii. There’s also a strong familial link to Kenya, shown by his support of Odinga, a family clan member. As a Senator, Obama traveled to Kenya and did some campaigning for Odinga.
d)He was born on board a ship or in Canada while his mother was returning to Washington State. This one doesn’t seem to have many proponents.
There are a couple of oddities: Indonesia presently has a two week limitation on visitor visas. Obama lived in Bali for three months while he was writing one of his books. He traveled to Pakistan at a time when US visas were difficult if not impossible to obtain. Did he travel with a US passport?
All of these may be nuts, but if so, why don’t they just present the birth certificate instead of taking legal action to have the case dismissed??
*remember the discussion about being natural born or not depending on his mother? I think it’s moot if he was born in Hawaii, but if he was born in Kenya, it would pertain.
Personally, I favor a) but there are those who have even named the specific hospital – Coast Hospital in Kenya – as the place where he was born.
“But, end of the day, I can’t support a birthright requirement….”
Right. Tell it to Prince Charles.
It will be hard to convince the electorate that Obama should be disqualified due to technical lawyer issues about losing his US citizenship due to foreign policy experience in Indonesia.
It won’t sway the blacks, it will create huge conspiracy theories about technicalities, and it can make Obama the victim.
From what I’ve learned about war, you can use assassination and deception to bypass your enemy and thus defeat him. But to win the war, you must fight. You must fight and defeat the enemy on his own ground, his own territory. TO force him to admit defeat.
Obama will always have an army of lawyers willing to continue the fight about citizenship. But if he loses the election, all that goes down the drain, unless ACORN can pull in an eleventh hour voter registration scandal that will put the election to Lawyers.
The precedent of allowing lawyers, any lawyers, to decide elections or qualifications is a bad step. Allowing the Supreme Court to make such decisions is even worse. They are the same thing in the end, however.
Al Qaeda is retreating from Iraq not because we found a technicality in their atrocities or occupation of Al Anbar or propaganda lies about our military. AL Qaeda is retreating from Iraq because we shoved concrete bricks down their throat, after shattering their teeth, rupturing their eardrums, and executing them with JDAMs and sniper rounds. They recognize defeat because we defeated them fairly and squarely, on terms and land they chose to fight us on.
The Left and the Democrats will never admit defeat unless you beat them. Really beat them. We will admit defeat even if we believe the election was stolen, because we believe in the system and the process and the future. But the Democrats will not. They have not in the past. They will keep fighting if they so much have a scintilla of hope that they can still win the election.
You cannot and should not give them that hope.
Right. Tell it to Prince Charles.
America’s not run by a British blue blood aristocracy. He doesn’t matter to us.
Bookworm, I came across this at the end of September. A symposium where a group of law professors debated whether McCain’s birth in the Canal Zone made him ineligible to be president.
http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2008/09/if-mccain-wins.html
Is this suspicious? I wonder if the Obama people are nervous about a challenge to their candidate’s eligibility and they want to marshall the arguments against McCain.
I am not a lawyer, but I thought the case against McCain is pretty weak. He also released all of his records, unlike Obama who reveals as little as possible.
>>The Left and the Democrats will never admit defeat unless you beat them.>>
I think I agree. The birth issue becomes important, though, if it’s demonstrated that he was ineligible, he knew he was ineligible, but he proceeded anyway and to hell with the Constitution. I think people _will_ get upset about that. He is, after all, running to be the CEO of the country. If it’s established before the election, it could make a difference. If not, and if he wins the election, then I agree with you – it was “Just about sex” and it will be “just about natural born instead of naturalized”.
Although if the Indonesian situation proves to be correct, it’s possible that he’s an illegal immigrant. Now THAT would be rich!!!
In fact, if the Kenyan situation proves true, he may also be illegal, unless he can establish how he achieved citizenship. Born out the country, his mother could not transmit citizenship.
suek,
I would have predicted a probable win for McCain-Palin before the September-October surprise of Fannie May.
That hit people and are still hitting them. It gave the media all the things they needed to manufacture a crisis or a perception of a crisis. Voters who would not have voted, now are energized to vote precisely because of this IMMEDIATE sense of impending doom. And most of those voters will be Democrat, inner-city lower economic class Democrat. Or even Independents that would rather trust an Obama against a rich and white McCain.
McCain could have mitigated the propaganda value the MSM would have utilized out of Fannie May if only he had lost the “bipartisan” cra* and started taking names and kicking arse up in the Senate. But the Senate is not designed for that, you see. Only the Executive Branch is designed for that. In the Senate, you have to work with each other: you have to make deals.
That’s why Senators as Presidents are so rare. It rarely gives you a chance to shine.
People respect leaders, combat leaders, that get things done. And you cannot get things done if you have a bunch of 100 idtards tagging along making your decisions for you in committee. If the military ever acted like that, they would destroy themselves.
McCain needed the heads of those responsible for this mess to placate a fearful public. He didn’t produce them. Obama did produce them. Obama produced Bush, McCain, and the Republicans.
That’s not how to win. Allowing your enemies to spread lies about you and turn the people against you, so that they will set up IEDs to kill and maim your country’s soldiers is not the way to win.
Petraeus came up with counter-insurgency as the Core of the Surge.
When Neo gave a lot of credit to McCain for lobbying for a surge of troops and a change of strategy, I objected on nebulous details. Why? Because while I could not put my finger on it, I had the nagging suspicion that McCain either didn’t talk about counter-insurgency or didn’t know which parts of counter-insurgency should be applied. Petraeus did.
But Petraeus wasn’t around to advise McCain in this election, you see.
It’s a test. It’s a test to see how good he really is. If his judgment is so much better than Obama, we will see it play out. He won’t have the excuse of Bush, that he wasn’t prepared or expecting 9/11. This is it. He has Sarah Palin. Palin beat Republicans just as corrupt as Obama, even if their ambitions were far less than Obama’s. McCain has the resources and the experience for victory, if he chooses to use them.
The chaos of war will decide who wins and who loses. Could become a Vietnam where millions and millions more try to escape. Or it could be an Afghanistan or an Iraq.
All those aspects and the electoral college are what gives me hope. IF it was a simple popularity contest of a plurality of votes, like up in Britain, Germany, or Canada, we would be screwed.
But since it is electoral based, small states still matter. Rural areas still matter. Not just cities like New York, San Fran, or Atlanta.
Wow.
Well, it does seem a bit tin-foil hat-ish.
But what is so hard about producing a birth certificate? I mean, in one second, Obama and his campaign could make people who believe this look absolutely foolish.
You’d think they’d want to do that right about now.
Deana
By the way…I discovered along the way that the responsibility for determining the eligibility of a candidate for the presidency is in the Senate – one of the committees – and of all people, Senator Feinstein.
How do you like _them_ apples!!
We’re sunk.
I agree with you about McCain. I’ve never been pro McCain…but I’m absolutely anti-Obama. McCain is a “maverick”…not exactly true. McCain is a rebel. His rebelliousness sustained him in Vietnam – there’s no doubt that he’s a strong willed individual, but in a rebel, that’s not necessarily a good trait. A “maverick” is an unbranded slick eared calf. That would mean he was an Independent – but he’s not. Not really. Because as an independent he couldn’t win. So he took on a brand – and in doing so, he became once again a rebel, _not_ a maverick.
>suek
In fact, if the Kenyan situation proves true, he may also be illegal, unless he can establish how he achieved citizenship. Born out the country, his mother could not transmit citizenship.<
Born out of the country, mothers can transmit citizenship. Case in point, my older son was born in France. I am American, his father is French. My son has both French and American nationalities. The document that I was given by the consulate is called a consular certificate of birth abroad and is proof of his American nationality. I had to produce the hospital documentation as well as my American passport.
Was this true in 1961? I don’t know.
Kate
Cass of VC said that McCain wants to look out for the “little people”. But the underdog often are not right. Often they are the mob and wrong and should be punished.
McCain is against torture, even water boarding because he sees coercive interrogation methods as torture. He sees it as wrong because the terrorist is the “little guy” in jail and beholden to our power and that means they must be protected.
Same with McCain Feingold. The little guys have to be protected from themselves with Senate legislation, you see. You can’t trust them to spend their own money, you have to regulate it and make sure they do it right.
This is not what classical liberals believe in. Classical liberals believe in justice, not just looking out for the “underdog”.
Was this true in 1961? I don’t know.
The strongest legal argument I see is not whether Obama had naturalized or natural born citizenship transfered or otherwise, but whether the shenanigans that went on in Indonesia, which has laws that aren’t America, is recognized by American law as being valid. If American law recognizes and accepts Indonesia’s invalidation of American citizenship, then it becomes a de facto, even if it is not a de jure, INS purge of Obama’s citizenship.
I do not remember any examples of this, however. It is usual policy that American citizenship outside America really doesn’t count for much. You can be kidnapped and your fate will be about the same as any other citizen of a different nationality. If you get trapped in Saudi Arabia with an abusive husband and your kids locked into Sharia, then the usual policy is to let the local Saudi Arabian laws take hold. But that may not invalidate US citizenship, it just may mean on the Executive level that the US State Department won’t do a damn thing if you are a US citizen in Indonesia or not.
If a pregnant mother is an American citizen and gives birth while outside the boundaries of the United States, isn’t the child automatically an American citizen? If not, that would be really bizarre to me.
The Indonesia issue is really interesting. There’s a legal case to be made there! It depends on U.S. law that was in effect at that point in time, doesn’t it? Even if Barack Obama became a citizen of Indonesia, did he continue to hold dual citizenship? I believe there has been flux on the dual-citizenship issue since 1960, but I cannot remember the timeline.
Declaring Obama an Indonesian citizen *and* thereby invalidating his American citizenship would, I guess, constitute a technicality. The Supreme Court would probably find a way to weasel around such a technicality, but boy oh boy, wouldn’t that send the rioters into the streets, if an Obama presidency were invalidated by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision on an issue such as this!?!?!
What I can’t get past is Obama’s secretiveness, which has basically taken on a life of its own. This is a man who wants us to hire him, but refuses to provide us with any information. Considering that being a natural born citizen, however that is defined at law, is one of only three prerequisites for the job, you’d think he’d be willing to provide proof. I have no doubt that Berg is a nut, but I find unnerving, creepy and suspicious Obama’s absolute refusal to make available documents showing that he meets minimum Constitutional requirements. If there’s nothing wrong, why is he hiding things? And if he’s hiding things, is he worried that something’s wrong?
So, I find Berg’s behavior a whole lot less interesting than Obama’s.
>>Was this true in 1961? I don’t know.>>
No it was not true in 1961. At that time, for the “natural born” status to follow, the mother (actually whichever parent was the US citizen) had to have lived in the USA for 5 years after the 16th birthday. Obama was born when his mother was 18 years old. She would have had to have been 21. Understand, the child is eligible for citizenship, but is not considered a “natural born” citizen which is required by the Constitution.
http://immigration.findlaw.com/immigration/immigration-citizenship-naturalization/immigration-citizenship-naturalization-did-you-know
By the way…I had two sons born in Germany while we in the military in ’63 and ’64. On returning to the US, I had to get US birth certificates issued by the State Department which stated that they were US Citizens. I was told at the time that neither could be president due to having been born overseas. I suspect now that that was incorrect information, but I have to admit, it never concerned me unduly! Both were born after I was 21 and I didn’t leave the USA until I was 22.
>>If there’s nothing wrong, why is he hiding things?>>
Badda bing badda boom.
Exactly.
We’ll do this again.
The link will take you to Findlaw. You are interested in section 4, because that covers the law as it was in effect at the time of his birth, which would be the time that counts.
http://immigration.findlaw.com/immigration/immigration-citizenship-naturalization/immigration-citizenship-naturalization-did-you-know(1).html
Here is why it’s a problem for him:
1. The law was that if you were the child of a citizen and a non-citizen (Daddy was a Kenyan), the citizen (Mommy) had to have lived in the US for five years after the age of 16;
2. Obama’s mother was 19 when he was born;
3. Regrettably, 16 + 5 is not 19;
4. Therefore, Barack Obama cannot possibly be a natural-born US citizen, by virtue of the laws covering citizenship in force at the time of his birth. Period. It is irrelevant which hospital he was born in, or which country he was born in, moved to, was adopted by, etc: he cannot be a natural-born US citizen;
5. The only way he could have citizenship of any kind is if he were naturalized;
6. Naturalized citizens may not hold the highest office in the land: POTUS (sorry, Arnold…)
7. And as a matter of fact, since I doubt strongly anyone even thought to look at the laws at the time, (nothing nefarious: just that dopey 19 year olds don’t think of this stuff) then I also doubt strongly he was ever naturalized and I suspect he is probably not a citizen of the United States to this day – and has absolutely no business being in the senate, either.
This guy’s whole life is a sham. BUT – as you point out, he could take care of it and clear it up in five minutes, couldn’t he?
Rumor today is that there are people in possession of a valid Birth Certificate for Obama from _Kenya_. The fallout – if this is true – is just short of stupendous…but I’m not going to attempt to give you a short version. Go here and read Judah Benjamin’s report:
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/obama-born-in-kenya-new-information/#more-3844
Tiresias said:
I suspect he is probably not a citizen of the United States to this day – and has absolutely no business being in the senate, either.
It’s a technicality…I suspect if you held a vote on this birthplace requirement today, a reasonably large majority would overturn it.
Where he was born has absolutely no bearing on his ability or right to hold these offices other than the fact that there are a couple of rules about it. Rules enacted at the Presidential level, if I recall correctly, for starkly partisan reasons to keep a particular person from being able to run for President, not out of any general belief that being born somewhere else somehow means something significant.
It’s true Obama used technicalities like this to get other people thrown out of races so he could run unopposed, but this is a case where I think the rest of us should be better than Obama.
The proof of the unworkableness of such a requirement is that we currently have two Presidential candidates who both, potentially, can be challenged based on their birth place. It’s ridiculous and destructive.
Personally, I just can’t support pursuing an avenue like this that has nothing to do with Obama’s qualifications or the vote of the people. To win through this kind of technicality is to lose, and lose big time. Denying the majority the candidate they chose (if they do choose him) through such a path is wrong and dangerous. The backlash may be unimaginable.
“It’s a technicality..”
My previous comment on this idea (about Prince Chas) was too flip. I apologise.
How can anyone swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America when his very election is (if true) a mockery of it? What else in our law do you view as “a technicality”? Do you get to pick and choose? Murder is out but fraud is in??
As to why didn’t the Clintons bring this up, Berg is an open Hillary supporter. If BHO is declared ineligible, take a guess on who might be the replacement?
What we should all fear is the Constitutional crisis that would arise if an “ineligible” candidate were elected. That on top of the financial crisis? Wow!
PS: There never was any doubt about McCain’s eligibility. Some think that the Senate resolution declaring him eligible might have been designed for BHO. I recommend SueK’s link.
The destructive politics of candidate birthplace: One way in which I totally support Obama…
When you wish for an October surprise, be careful what you wish for… There’s buzz about an “October surprise” that Barack Obama was allegedly not born in the U.S. and has never become a legal U.S. citizen and therefore is……
Ellie2 said:
How can anyone swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America when his very election is (if true) a mockery of it? What else in our law do you view as “a technicality”? Do you get to pick and choose? Murder is out but fraud is in??
You make a valid point.
As I understand it, courts have long held that some requirements for office are not considered inviolable, and they tend to go with the will of the people on them. It has come up not infrequently when a person is slightly too young the day they win the election, but will be old enough when they take office, etc.
If you feel this is a compelling reason to keep someone out of office, it follows that:
- Obama was justified to get all his opponents thrown off the ballot, even in the case where the person who had previously long held the office was completely qualified and wanted by the people, but just didn’t have the time to get the proper signatures together, and there is no room to criticize or judge him for this.
- If it turns out for some currently unknown reason that McCain is ineligible on a similar basis, you will immediately call for him to step down or be removed.
You may well agree with both of these, but they (especially the latter) trouble me.
I amplified my initial response here (including a bit more research into the history of this) in this post.
I don’t think you really understand the implications, Ronald. If – and I realize that it’s still a big if – he was in fact born in Kenya, he may not be a citizen at all. That is to say, it’s not a question of being “natural born” or “naturalized”, but rather whether he’s a citizen at all. Would you suggest that it would be perfectly fine to elect an illegal immigrant to the highest office?
In fact, he would also be ineligible to hold the Senatorial office he presently holds. We’re not talking “impeachment” here…we’re saying that he’s guilty of fraudulently assuming office. The fraud accusation assumes he knows that he is not a legal citizen. The question is then when did he find out… he certainly knows the law – he can’t use that excuse. He _could_ use the excuse that he didn’t know until he started to run for the Presidency…or sometime after the campaign began. But he certainly knew the law.
And that doesn’t even start on members of the DNC who also had to know. We’re talking deliberate national fraud, if this is shown to be true.
Let’s get past McCain having a similar problem: he doesn’t have a similar problem.
He was born to American parents, one of whom was serving in the military.
You actually think all the kids born on bases in Germany, Britain, Japan or England to serving US military personnel might not be considered citizens? Get real, please. You’re trying to compare apples and oranges again. There is zero relationship between the two situations.
- Obama was justified to get all his opponents thrown off the ballot, even in the case where the person who had previously long held the office was completely qualified and wanted by the people, but just didn’t have the time to get the proper signatures together, and there is no room to criticize or judge him for this.
it is patently clear that Obama was not justified in doing so because he would not accept the same methods used against him. If those methods of his were just and he believed them correct, then he would accept their use in his own Presidential race against his candidacy. The fact that people refuse to accept something that they will readily dish out to others is one of the deciders of whether it is truly just or not.
This also applies to us, in that would we accept citizenship invalidation of a Sarah Palin or John McCain by an Obama if the alternative is to flaunt the US Constitution.
That has never come up for conservatives will usually attempt Constitutional amendments first and not try to hide such things in the dark.
How can anyone swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America when his very election is (if true) a mockery of it? What else in our law do you view as “a technicality”? Do you get to pick and choose? Murder is out but fraud is in??
There’s real power and then there is idealism. If you somehow end up with an obama in power, having won that power through the apparatuses of an election, solidifed and supported by a US Constitution, while at the same time violating the spirit and writ of the Constitution, then you have the age old problem of what happens when words on paper designed for an ideal world meets brute power. Brute power has always won. Idealism, the US Constitution, only ever came about because the American Founding Fathers shed blood and used power and warfare against foreign powers.
How can anyone swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America when his very election is (if true) a mockery of it?
The answer is that Obama won’t be serving the Constitution, obviously. When the Constitution stands in the way of megalomaniacs and power mongers, the Constitution will die in the night.
Obama’s character is not designed to serve a higher cause than himself.
This would be true regardless of what Obama’s citizenship problems are.
There is zero relationship between the two situations.
There was zero chance of Dodd and Frank putting the best interests of the nation over their bribes taken from Fannie May, but that’s exactly what people have been convinced of. That Democrats put the nation first in trying to reign in Fannie May, but the Republicans did the opposite.
How much of a relationship to truth do you think that has? Zero?
Yet perception is reality in wars based mostly on propaganda and psychological warfare results.
Suek said:
Would you suggest that it would be perfectly fine to elect an illegal immigrant to the highest office?
The citizenship question is certainly troubling, I agree.
But I cannot get past the fact that rejecting a candidate the people have chosen, someone who has lived almost his entire life in this country and has been involved in U.S. politics for a long time now and is well-known to the public (at least to the degree they choose to know about him!), based on a criteria that has nothing to do with his actual ability to fulfill the obligations of office, is worse than the alternative.
I remain frustrated that I could not choose to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger or the numerous other politicians who could otherwise run for the highest office if not for the birthplace requirement. I do not believe it serves us to keep potential talent from the most important jobs.
The citizenship aspect of this, if it turns out to be true, may well blow this into a real factor. If it does, I predict that nothing good will come of it.
For what it’s worth, Hot Air is not buying this claim.
My argument is separate from the question of whether the claim is true or not…but especially if it’s not true, it’s completely wasted time and energy to focus on this instead of on convincing people why they shouldn’t vote for Obama in the first place.
In the last couple of days I have been able to introduce at least two people to the facts, previously unknown to them, of how Obama won his first election, and that Ayers really is an unrepentant terrorist. I probably didn’t swing a vote, but I did at least introduce some, “Oh, I had no idea…” that opens people up for being persuaded in the future.
For those of us who care that Obama not get elected, I really think these are the things to focus on.
There is a difference between Constitutional requirements and all the squiggly little laws enacted about who is a citizen and who is not a citizen, if the person is born abroad.
The Constitution is clear: you have to be a natural born citizen to be president. That’s not a technicality. That’s a baseline requirement.
If one ignores all the little squiggly laws and if Obama was born in Kenya, he is absolutely, completely, totally, not a natural born citizen.
And if the law requires his American parent to have been an adult citizen of the United States for a number of years to bestow on him citizenship, then he’s not a natural born citizen either.
In other words, assuming he was born in Kenya to a 19 year old, he’s not a natural born citizen under either the simple language of the Constitution or the technical twists and turns of the laws enacted to help Americans abroad bestow citizenship on their children.
As for McCain, I have always been under the impression that military bases, no matter where in the world they are, are considered American soil. In other words, a military child is actually born on American soil, not on the soil of the country in which the base happens to be located.
As for McCain, I have always been under the impression that military bases, no matter where in the world they are, are considered American soil. In other words, a military child is actually born on American soil, not on the soil of the country in which the base happens to be located.
Only military culture treats it as de jure and de facto like that. Most other people ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist.
Only the Navy or the military, for example, treats a US carrier as sovereign American soil.
It’s a cultural difference, regardless of the legalities.
Like when the Islamic Jihad of Iran stormed our embassy and took Americans hostage. Our embassies were supposed to be “sovereign American soil” and any attack there would equate to an attack on Alaska, Hawaii, New York, or California: a declaration of war.
But, that’s not how it turned out, is it, Book. That’s cause the State Department and Carter was in on the fix.
based on a criteria that has nothing to do with his actual ability to fulfill the obligations of office,
Don’t forget that it is also going to be based off of Obama’s attempts to deceive the American people via manipulation and document forgery or omission.
That will impact Obama’s judgment. Without transparency, how will America’s political system function any more?
I was born overseas on American base to two American parents (my father was serving in the Army at the time).
My birth certificate is slightly different than if I had been born in the U.S., but my parents didn’t have to do anything special to have the U.S. acknowledge me as an American citizen. Under those circumstances, you simply are an American citizen.
Deana
>>…but my parents didn’t have to do anything special to have the U.S. acknowledge me as an American citizen.>>
When my kids were born in Germany, we had an Army form as proof of birth “to an American citizen born abroad”. Typical military form…about 11 inches long, and pages 3,4 and 5 of a document typed on an old typewriter with 6 copies…carbon copies. When we got back to the States, I had to submit them to the State Department, after which we received a diploma looking birth certificate stating that each was a citizen.
It sounds like they simplified the process.
It isn’t military bases being American soil that matters so much, it’s who the parents are. My own brother couldn’t wait, and showed up a couple of weeks early – as it so happened, in Italy. Our parents being American, there was never a question that he might turn out to be Italian: he was a recognized American from the word “go.”
The immigration authorities of most countries already thought of this, you know? It happens. A very good friend and wife who happen to be from Edinburgh were unable to make it home when she went into somewhat premature labor (or perhaps “labour”), and their daughter was born in Mt. Kisco, NY. There was never any question that she’s a Brit.
What the people have chosen is not relevant if it turns out they’ve chosen it under false pretences. That would pretty much invalidate the choice. As Bookworm says: “this issue is not a technicality, it’s a baseline requirement.”
Well, so it is, and if it’s been skirted around and glossed over and lied about, then that wasn’t a choice at all, was it?
If Obama, or anyone else, wanted this problem to go away, it would take about eight seconds: produce the information. I’ve had to produce a birth certificate on more than one occasion in my life, it wasn’t too much of a challenge. If Barry’s telling us the truth, it should be equally simple for him. What’s the problem?
In a way Obama is immunized by the psychology of the “Big Lie.” It is nearly impossible to wrap one’s brain around the audacity/contempt it would take to attempt such a massive fraud on the American people, not the mention the DNC.
Therefore, it can’t possibly be true. (And I for one sure hope it isn’t.)
> McCain needed the heads of those responsible for this mess to placate a fearful public. He didn’t produce them. Obama did produce them. Obama produced Bush, McCain, and the Republicans.
This is precisely what happened while McCain was being bipartisan on the bailout bill and Obama was out there damning Bush and all Republicans with the harshest of rhetoric.
McCain lost several battles, in a ROUT, in a gentlemanly fashion, for two weeks, at the very height of the campaign. He remains very ineffective in getting his message out. He may not have been elected Miss Congeniality of the Senate in years past, but he’s making a strong case for it this year.
The only advisers McCain should listen to now are Cindy McCain and Sarah palin. Fire everybody else or make them do the grunt work.