Yet another sneering article about the Obama Eligibility issue has appeared – this time from The Politico: Whisper Campaign Persists Despite Election. It is yet one more attempt by the media to invalidate the questions being asked by many conservative bloggers, (but not the big ones who don’t want to touch this story).
It begins:
Even with the election decided, the widely debunked whisper campaign claiming that Barack Obama is secretly not an American, and thus not qualified to be president, is going strong.
Widely debunked? I immediately scanned the article for examples of these debunkings, because, if I am in error, I’d like to know. I hadn’t noticed any convincing debunkings, to date, so I was anxious to see what Andy Barr at the Politico had to offer. But alas…no solid examples were forthcoming, just more assertions that the “conspiracy theories” are erroneous:
“I think there are just a lot of people who just want to believe it,” said Paul Waldman, who has studied the conspiracy theories over Obama’s citizenship for Media Matters.
Waldman said that like with the claims that the Clintons killed White House Counsel Vince Foster, a certain segment of the population will continue to believe Obama won on illegitimate grounds no matter how often the claim is disproved.
“When something gets refuted there a certain number of people that just won’t believe it,” he said. “If they are predisposed to believe it, refuting it will have no impact.”
And finally:
Waldman, though, doubts the skeptics can be convinced, no matter what evidence is produced. “There is nothing much you can do to reach these people,” Waldman said. “No matter how many times you tell them the truth they will continue to believe this.”
So what’s this evidence they speak of? It always comes down to the same five things, as noted here:
1. “He posted his birth certificate on his website”.
He posted a possibly forged copy of his Certification of Live Birth on his website, after it first appeared (Oddly enough) at The Daily Kos website.
The American Thinker does a good job explaining why that is not proof that Obama was born in the U.S.
Under Hawaiian law, it is possible (both legally and illegally) for a person to have been born out of state, yet have a birth certificate on file in the Department of Health.
A. From Hawaii’s official Department of Health, Vital Records webpage: “Amended certificates of birth may be prepared and filed with the Department of Health, as provided by law, for 1) a person born in Hawaii who already has a birth certificate filed with the Department of Health or 2) a person born in a foreign country“ (applies to adopted children).B. A parent may register an in-state birth in lieu of certification by a hospital of birth under HRS 338-5.C. Hawaiian law expressly provides for registration of out-of-state births under HRS 338-17.8. A foreign birth presumably would have been recorded by the American consular of the country of birth, and presumably that would be reflected on the Hawaiian birth certificate.D. Hawaiian law, however, expressly acknowledges that its system is subject to error. See, for example, HRS 338-17.E. Hawaiian law expressly provides for verification in lieu of certified copy of a birth certificate under HRS 338-14.3.F. Even the Hawaii Department of Home Lands does not accept a certified copy of a birth certificate as conclusive evidence for its homestead program. From its web site: “In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.”
2. “Factcheck proved it”
The Annenberg owned Factcheck.org only dubiously verified that the COLB was authentic. That leaves the questions addressed in #1 unanswered.
3. “The state of Hawaii released a statement saying he was born there”.
That October 31, 2008 statement says that Dr. Fukino “ha[s] personally seen and verified that the Hawai’i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.“ That statement does not, however, verify that Obama was born in Hawaii, and as explained above, under Hawaiian policies and procedures it is quite possible that Hawaii may have a birth record of a person not born in Hawaii. Unlikely, but possible.
4. “Judges meritoriously threw it out as ‘frivolous'”.
Of course they did, but because the citizen who brought the case “lacked standing”. The fact is, nobody wants to touch this hot potato.
5. “There was a birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper”.
There sure was, you can view it, here.
This is the most compelling proof available that Obama was born in Hawaii, (but still does not address the citizenship issue stemming from his years as an citizen of Indonesia).
And it still doesn’t really prove that Obama was born in Hawaii. One of my kids has a birth announcement in a newspaper in Tucson, AZ., even though she was born in Kansas City. You can chalk that up to proud grandparents. The announcement doesn’t include the hospital Obama was born at, which would be nice, because thus far, no hospitals in Hawaii have claimed him.
Jayme Evans made some cogent points at CFP:
A favorite tactic of Communists, liberals and others on the left is using peer pressure-laced name-calling to try and marginalize those with whom they disagree. If they can successfully convince enough people that a particular viewpoint is held only by those on the fringes, as opposed to the mainstream, they believe they can successfully discredit that person as a crackpot.
You know…if the people asking these questions really are truthers, maybe it would be useful for interested parties to hire a team of independent experts to thoroughly investigate the allegations, sort of like Popular Mechanics did with the 9/11 truthers.
Relying on Factcheck.org, or Obama’s own Fight the Smears website for the answers, doesn’t really cut it.
I’d just like to hear a good explanation as to why Obama has spent at least a million dollars to prevent his vault birth certificate from being seen.
Nice Deb 
