Birth Certificate Issue is Beyond Politics
Phil Orenstein • August 13, 2008 • Uncategorized
Recently, Candace de Russy followed up on developments in the drama of Obama’s fraudulent birth certificate and possible dual citizenship. The existing images of Barack Obama’s alleged birth certificate on the Daily Kos site and his own campaign site Fight the Smears have been proven forgeries according to diligent forensic detective work which I discussed here. De Russy reports:
It appears that Barack Obama’s official birth certificate actually reads Barry Soetoro. His named was changed from Barack Obama to Barry Soetoro when his mother’s husband Lolo Soetoro adopted Barack. Therefore, the original birth certificate provided by the Barack campaign, is either a fake or his name has been changed back to his birth name. Considering this new development, is Barack a dual-citizen of Indonesia and the United States? And did he use his Indonesian passport to travel to Pakistan in 1981?
It is important to look into this because Barack Obama has purportedly deceived the public regarding his true identity and dual citizenship. He may still be a citizen of Indonesia or not. But naysayers and those who argue that this is not a substantive issue miss the point. A reader responds to de Russy’s report as follows:
The Constitution simply states the requirement that a president be a natural-born citizen, but sets forth no requirement to prove it. That’s hardly surprising: it’s not like the Framers were familiar with Departments of Vital Statistics or Birth Certificates.
Absent any formal question concerning his citizenship status — and there is none — you might as well chalk this up to innocent until proven guilty. Mr Obama does not have to provide a birth certificate; his opponents have to provide evidence that he does not qualify.
The point is that this issue is not about Obama. It is a much more weighty issue than apparent political attacks to derail the Obama presidential campaign by either right-wing bloggers or supporters of Hillary. Clinton supporter TexasDarlin reveals a report that a Republican operative in Hawaii has in his possession the real Obama birth certificate with the name Barry Soetoro, and is waiting until after the convention to drop the bomb. But Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs takes the news as the straw that breaks the camel’s back, alleging this and possibly other revelations about Obama are planted by stealthy Clinton operatives in order to steal the nomination while pinning the blame on Republicans. Not wanting to further aid and abet the greater threat, Hillary, she chooses to wait until after the nomination for further investigation. Similarly she misses the critical point of holding all public officials and candidates accountable to the Constitution, whether they are an Obama, Clinton or McCain. No one is beyond reproach.
The reader above says that this is a matter of “innocence until proven guilty.” However, the “presumption of innocence” is only true in criminal law where the court system is required to prove the guilt of a criminal beyond a reasonable doubt. However, in vetting candidates for public office the American public must take a critical stand and make informed choices. This entails investigating documentation of natural-born citizenship for eligibility to be President of the United States as stated in Article II of the Constitution.
Mitchell Langbert argues the point best saying that there is an issue here that is beyond politics:
The issue of the birth certificate is a matter of ethics, not just politics. The public has a right to know. Whether that results in Hillary Clinton’s nomination or not is not the core of the issue.
…in a nutshell, the American public has the right to an electoral system that functions coherently. Partisanship created an electoral system that does not require identification, birth certificates and fingerprinting of candidates. This is a more important problem than Hillary v. Obama…
There is another, more crucial point. I see no need to suspend coverage of this or to avoid attacking the most likely Democratic nominee. The Republicans should aim to win with good ethics, integrity and principle, not venom and anger at Democrats.
We must reclaim the moral high ground that both Republicans and Democrats lost in the turmoil of partisan politics. Thus Langbert is forging ahead to empower the public with the right to know and the duty to hold political candidates accountable. He has been circulating an online petition requesting that the Federal Elections Commission and Mr. Donald McGahan, FEC chairman verify the eligibility of Barack Obama to be President of the United States. The petition will close in another day or two and he has put out a last call for signatures. The fact that nearly 5000 people have already signed the petition is a heartening indication that more than a handful of people have risen to the occasion to say that they will not be deceived and to insist that the citizens of the United States have a right to know about their elected officials.
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3 Responses to “Birth Certificate Issue is Beyond Politics”
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The anonymous reader cited above isn’t embarrassed for you to use his name; he stands behind everything he has written!
Mr Orenstein wrote:
I don’t disagree with this at all: the public are allowed to take anything they wish into consideration when deciding for whom to cast their votes. If they wish to vote for John McCain simply because he is white, or for Mr Obama because they hate George Bush, or even play eenie-meenie-minie-moe, they are absolutely free to do so, and are under no obligation to either explain or disclose their votes.
But I believe that you are thumping on a long-expired equine here. If all you can do is cast doubt on Mr Obama’s status, you will persuade none who support him — they’ll think it all a dirty trick — and turn off some who are simply, realistically undecided. The question is: will such a tactic pull more voters in for John McCain, because they are uncertain if Barack Obama is really a natural-born citizen, or will it drive more voters to Mr Obama, because they’ll see it as an underhanded trick, and blame it on Mr McCain?
Mr Orenstein continued:
Surely you realize that rather few people will see this effort as an attempt “to reclaim the moral high ground.” It will be quickly noted that there were many Republicans who, looking for a superior candidate for 2008, were talking about a constitutional amendment to change the requirement, to allow long-term immigrants like the current Governor of California to be eligible to run; such talk dies away rather quickly after it was realized that a California Republican might not be the kind of conservative leader Republicans across the nation would embrace.
Let us suppose that Mr Obama really isn’t a natural-born citizen. Just what remedy is specified under the law? Would the Electors be unable to vote for him; the law is silent on the electors’ choices, save that they may not vote for two people from their own state. If the Electors voted for Mr Obama, what mechanism exists to invalidate their choice, save impeachment?
The only actual remedy that exists is not under the law, but in the choice of the Democratic Party. They could somehow try to strip him of the nomination, or choose Hillary Clinton [ugh!] at the convention. But if the Democrats do not take such action, then the provisions of Article II, §2 (5) are, in fact, dead letters, because there is no enforcement mechanism provided, save for the political choices of the Electors and the Congress.
Mr Orenstein concluded:
Really? Out of 300,000,000 Americans, 5,000 constitutes a whopping 0.0167%. (If you divide it by 120,000,000 voters, you get 0.04%.) That isn’t “more than a handful; that’s not even a fingernail-full!
I’ve heard so many internet rumors concerning “proof” that Mr Obama is disqualified from the presidency, yet somehow, some way, that proof is always just around the next corner, in someone else’s possession, to be released at the most fortuitous time. If someone actually has unimpeachable proof — pun intended — then let him bring it forth. But, until then, I don’t see this as a really credible line of attack.
[...] Phil Orenstein of The Democracy Project took issue with a comment I made concerning the question of Barack Hussein Obama’s status as a “natural-born citizen.” Birth Certificate Issue is Beyond Politics [...]
Thank you, Dana for your comments. But, you have missed the point. The key is in the title that this issue of Obama’s birth certificate is beyond politics. Perhaps Hillary supporters and others are using it as a politcal ploy to “swiftboat” Obama’s candidacy but Dr. Mitchell Langbert, whom I believe you are following as well, is not. While others are doing a yoeman’s job exposing the issues of Obama’s foreign policy incompetance and Marxist economic agenda, we are not trying to sink his ship with the birth certificate issue, but empower the American people to put on their critical judgemnet caps and think and reason. One of the jobs of the citizenry is to vet and hold leaders accountable, and the fact that the FEC doesn’t vet aspirants to the highest offices for criminal background, fingerprints and birth documentation demands a call to action that they do so. Have faith in the American people that with the right tools and ethics on our side, the right man will win. The fact that over 5000 and growing signitories to the petition, indicates that more than 250,000 people from all over the country support it, considering that grassroots internet petitions without the benefit of MSM support (like the Gingrich Drill Here, Drill Now petition) generate a 2% return.