"Blogger smrstrauss said...
Let us suppose you were right and that Obama was not born in Hawaii.
He WAS born in Hawaii. I’ve seen pictures of his birth certificate (or maybe certificate of live birth, I forget which), and there is a confirming notice in the Hawaii Advertiser. But suppose on a wild chance that this was wrong.
Suppose that this fact were to be proven before the election. Would this help make McCain elected president? No. It would merely make Joe Biden the presidential candidate of the Democratic party.
Would Biden win just like Obama would? Sure.
Would he win even BIGGER than Obama would? Maybe. You can’t call him inexperienced or a terrorist or a friend of Ayers, nor would people who vote against Obama because of his race or alleged Arab ties or alleged Moslem religion vote against Biden.
Biden would get all the votes of Obama and maybe a few more.
Suppose it was proven after the election. Would that make McCain the president? No. If the Congress really bought the fact that Obama was not born in the USA, and that therefore Obama was not eligible to be president (which is a stretch because it is controlled by Democrats), then Biden would be president.
So, what is the point?
26 October 2008 01:23"
My reply:
"I have published your comment because it is typical of the muddled thinking and faulty logic that pervades so much of the blogosphere.
First of all my article was reporting the latest in the legal battle of Philip J. Berg not my own beliefs.
Second I have explained in both of my pieces about this legal claim that I consider it a "conspiracy theory" and ask my readers to add salt to the reading process.
Third if Barack Obama dropped out before the elction that would not necessarily make Joe Biden the new candidate, there are Democratic Party procedures that could mean a third person (probably Hillary Clinton) would be elected presidential candidate whilst Joe Biden stayed as VP candidate.
Fourth you say "Would Biden win just like Obama would? Sure.". I would dispute this, are you saying that Barack Obama has not made the difference in this election and that any Democratic candidate could win in his place. Because I would argue that Joe Biden would not even make the top 20 Democratic party candidates.
Fifth you go on to claim that "You can’t call him inexperienced or a terrorist or a friend of Ayers, nor would people who vote against Obama because of his race or alleged Arab ties or alleged Moslem religion vote against Biden." True but I na d many others could point out that Joe Biden is rather a joke along the lines of a John Prescott in the UK. Someone prone to making "misspeaks" and verbal gaffes; if you want I am sure you could find many from this election campaign - just because the MSM don't report them doesn't mean they haven't happened.
Sixth your point about after the election is true but as I claim that any election won by Obama could (if the claims were true) be frauldulent, would you be happy with the election result standing?
Finally, if Barack Obama has nothing to hide why has he not released the documents that have been requested of him?"
12 comments:
Handled right, the Fed District Court throwing out Berg for lack of standing can present a political check-mate “win” on appeal for the anti-Obama side (if not in law, in the Court of Public Opinion). Here’s how: SIMPLY SPREAD AROUND OBAMA’S APPELLATE BRIEF HAVING TO ARGUE AGAINST AN AMERICAN VOTER’S RIGHT TO RAISE THE QUESTION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. Should be a PR disaster for the Dems and Obama!!!
Re Obama allegedly was not born in the USA.
The Constitution makes clear that President is decided in an election every four years, and it makes clear that there are two legal requirements for a US President: that he be native born (born in the USA) and that he be over the age of 35.
However, it does not say who decides whether a person is native born or over the age of 35.
That being the case, you can assume that the Federal courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court, would ultimately decide. But it might not. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that it only wants to get into such things if it has to. Most likely it will decide that ordinary citizens have no standing to sue, meaning that McCain must sue, and he is not likely to do so.
And, in the extremely unlikely event the Supreme Court decides to take the case it almost certainly will be after the election, and if it found in your favor (which is extremely unlikely since there is no evidence), then at the most it would make Joe Biden president.
But there is another judge, a better judge: We the voters.
If Obama were proven to have been born outside the USA, then I assume that we would honor the Constitution and not vote for him.
Some, of course, would continue to vote for Biden, meaning for the Democratic ticket, on the assumption that the Supreme Court might get involved and the resolution would be to give the election to Biden.
But some of us would change our vote to McCain, or vote for Nader or Bob Barr (the Libertarian Party candidate), or not vote at all.
If this is what you desire, then you should bring your case before the American People, we the voters.
There is little time left. Today (Monday 27) there are eight days before the election, meaning that there are only seven days to present your evidence, since most of us have made up our minds by at least the night before the election. Of course, with early voting, some of us have made up our minds already. So time is pressing as far as you are concerned.
But do not imagine that we are fools. In other words, to make your case that Obama is not a native born citizen YOU have to make a case. You have to present your evidence. YOU.
It is not enough to say “why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?” He is busy, and people do lose their birth certificates. I have seen a photo on the Web of his certificate of live birth from the State of Hawaii, and, you know, no one in the government of the State of Hawaii has come forward to claim that that document has been forged.
In order to prove that he was born in Kenya, you really have to show some evidence that he was BORN in Kenya. An audio tape recording from someone who is said to be his paternal grandmother saying that she remembers that he was born in Kenya really doesn’t cut it. Why not? Because we do not know whether the voice on the tape is the real grandmother, it could be any Kenyan old lady. Or, even if it is the grandmother, she could be remembering wrong. It happens. So you will need both to substantiate that the tape is of the grandmother AND show something else.
You might produce records from the Kenyan immigration department showing that it checked in Obama’s mother into Kenya sometime before the birth. Or you could show a notice in a Kenyan newspaper. Or you could show a Kenyan birth certificate, or the record of a hospital. Or you could prove that Obama's mother traveled to Kenya.
But without that proof, who will believe you??
Re the election being somehow fraudulent. Prove it.
Re: Finally, if Barack Obama has nothing to hide why has he not released the documents that have been requested of him?"
Replying specifically to that:
For any of many possible reasons.
One being that he is terribly busy at the moment. Another may be that he has been informed that the real paper copy of the certificate has been lost, even by the state of Hawaii, and so he has to rely on electronic records.
Another might be that he is insulted and irritated that anyone even asked. (Has anyone asked the previous presidents or presidential candidates to prove that they are US citizens?).
Still another is that he regards the allegation that he was nor born in the USA as laughable, and he will not dignify it with an answer. Still another is that it is along the lines of “the defendant did not testify, so the defendant must be guilty.”
Still another is that it opens the door to asking for proof of obvious things;
You graduated from Columbia? Prove it.
You went to Harvard Law School? Prove it.
Show us your marriage license. Etc.
It may be that he feels that answering questions along these lines, and over his birth certificate, are questions that would be asked of minorities but are not likely to be asked of whites. This may be wrong, but he is entitled to feel it.
In other words, not showing the certificate is NOT proof that there is no certificate.
In order to prove that Obama was born outside the USA. There has to be evidence that he was born outside of the USA. That is the responsibility of the people who make the allegation. Without that evidence, we all will continue to believe that Obama was born in Hawaii as he says.
By the way, it was EXPENSIVE to travel from Hawaii to Kenya in those days.
Once again you seem most confused so I'll make it simple for you.
1) I am not making these claims, Philip J. Berg is. I am reporting them because I am a) intrigued by the story and b) wonder why Barack Obama has refused to release so many official papers about his life.
2) Your logic is so faulty as to be almost laughable - "If Obama were proven to have been born outside the USA, then I assume that we would honor the Constitution and not vote for him." Why do you assume that? Surely even you must admit that a lot of Barack Obama voters couldn't care less about where Barack Obama is born, what his religion when a child may have been or indeed anything other than the redeeming power of voting for a black man because of the colour of his skin.
You are welcome to visit my blog and you are welcome to post comments on it but do try and comment rather more intelligently in future.
Re your second posted comment, are you for real?
"One being that he is terribly busy at the moment."
Is he campaigning all by himself? He has the best funded Presidential campaign of all time, if he wanted to release these documents he could, he hasn't so I assume he doesn't want to.
"Another might be that he is insulted and irritated that anyone even asked. (Has anyone asked the previous presidents or presidential candidates to prove that they are US citizens?)."
Was there ever any doubt about previous candidates? Note that John McCain has released the details of his birth, his education, his military service and his up to date health records - he has shown he has nothing to hide, this leads me to ask again what has Barack Obama got to hide.
The rest of your suggested reasons are too laughable for me to even comment on. Try opening your mind to the possibility that Barack Obama may not be perfect and beyond criticism. Surely you would prefer to live in a world of logic than fantasy.
As I say, YOU have to prove it, and you are not proving it. You are not saying “Obama was born in Kenya, and here is why.”
You are just repeating the question: “Why doesn’t he release?” That proves nothing.
THIS is more likely to be true that all your questions:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
Which reads in part:
“Born in the U.S.A.
August 21, 2008
Updated: August 26, 2008
The truth about Obama's birth certificate.
Summary
In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document's authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is "fake."
We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.”
End quote:
There is, of course, one more reason why he doesn’t as you say “release”, and that is that he may believe that what he released, the certificate of live birth, is all that is necessary to release. It was after all accepted by the State Department. No one in the government of Hawaii has said that it is a forgery.
Let me repeat. You are not offering any evidence that Obama was born in Kenya. You just keep repeating “why doesn’t he release?”
Well, there’s seven days to the election and really only six if you want to change minds, and you haven’t moved a step towards convincing anyone.
Far more people will believe this http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html than your smoke.
As for Obama being less than perfect. Who said he was perfect? I said he was born in the good old USA. About 300 million of us were. If you believe that he was born somewhere else, prove it.
You are becoming rather boring. Are you really incapable of understanding plain English? As I have said before and will repeat one more time - do try and concentrate this time - I am not making these claims, Philip J. Berg is. I am reporting them because I am a) intrigued by the story and b) wonder why Barack Obama has refused to release so many official papers about his life.
As for factcheck.org, I suppose that you will claim that you are unaware that Barack Obama and William Ayers both served as co-chairs of the Chicago Annenburg Challenge and that Barack Obama called for an $3.5 million dollar earmark for the Annenburg Foundation that sponsors - yes you guessed it - FactCheck.org. So the organisation that you and other trusting people are relying upon for "fair" fact checking is, as the left would say in the UK, "institutionally biased" in favour of Barack Obama.
Re: Barack Obama called for an $3.5 million dollar earmark for the Annenburg Foundation that sponsors - yes you guessed it - FactCheck.org. So the organisation that you and other trusting people are relying upon for "fair" fact checking is, as the left would say in the UK, "institutionally biased" in favour of Barack Obama.
I see from your spelling that you are British. In which case, you probably learned at school about the “argument ad hominum,” which goes along the following lines: “Hitler said that one and one made two. That can’t be right.” And, “George Washington and Winston Churchill both thought that one and one makes three. That must be right.”
In other words, to show that something is either right or wrong, you have to discuss the issues. You cannot say that because you think that the Annenburg site is biased, the facts are wrong.
In fact, you would have enormous difficulty in showing that the site is biased in favor of Obama. It rips into him for misstatements about McCain many times. (see the site.)
Moreover, IF in what Factcheck says, such as :
“We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false.”
And
“We can assure readers that the certificate does bear a raised seal, and that it's stamped on the back by Hawaii state registrar Alvin T. Onaka (who uses a signature stamp rather than signing individual birth certificates).”
…were deliberately wrong, then the individuals involved might be charged with some form of fraud at a later date. And, even if there were no legal liability, to imply that they are deliberately telling untruths is a form of slander on a group of people you do not know. Not very civil, I think, and not very honorable.
Annenburg, by the way, was for decades a strong supporter of the Republican party, and when he owned newspapers, in the 1960s and before, his newspapers’ editorials (I guess you call them “leaders”) I recall always called for the Republican presidential candidate to be elected.
Now let’s get on to your repeated excuse. You say: “I am not making these claims, Philip J. Berg is. I am reporting them because I am a) intrigued by the story and b) wonder why Barack Obama has refused to release so many official papers about his life.’”
Sadly, this statement is along these lines: “I do not believe in witches, but the following article, discussion, law case, etc. that claims that there are witches is very intriguing, and I think people should read it and consider it closely.”
In this case, it must be just as intriguing to see a discussion of the fact that Obama was not born in Kenya. You did not publish anything like this.
To be sure, you may say that you do NOT believe that Obama was born in Kenya – although I notice that you do not say it – but you did publish information that claimed that he WAS born in Kenya.
By the way, do you think he was born in Kenya? And if so, based on what information?
If you answer that you do NOT believe that Obama was born in Kenya, then let me explain that when I used the pronoun YOU, that pronoun did not refer to you personally but to the broad group of people who do think that Obama was born in Kenya and their cohorts: the ones who think that there is a chance that Obama was born in Kenya, and the ones who do NOT think that Obama was born in Kenya but do not mind if they help other people to think that was the case.
By the way, on Obama has refused to publish etc. I read on another site a comment from a doctor who was irritated that McCain had not published the full details of his health situation. Obama of course HAS published a copy of his Hawaii certificate of live birth.
Cheers
I am indeed English and I also know what an argumentum ad hominem (not as you spelt it) is - it means that if you cannot attack the argument, you attack the arguer instead. An argumentum ad hominem means that the argument is not treated on its merits. End of English lesson...
You appear to be claiming that because factcheck have attacked Barack Obama for some misstatements that that means they are unbiased; surely that is a logical fallacy
Once again you seem obsessed that I might believe these claims and accuse me of doing so. As UK Prime Ministers used to say "I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago" - "I am not making these claims, Philip J. Berg is. I am reporting them because I am a) intrigued by the story and b) wonder why Barack Obama has refused to release so many official papers about his life."
"In this case, it must be just as intriguing to see a discussion of the fact that Obama was not born in Kenya. You did not publish anything like this." - Another logical fallacy.
As to your weasel words about the pronoun "you"; come off it, you can be more convincing than that, can't you?
"Obama of course HAS published a copy of his Hawaii certificate of live birth." Begging a question there aren't you?
On the subject of releasing records, perhaps you could point me to where I can find Barack Obama's Medical Records, Columbia University Records, Harvard University Records and University of Chicago Records.
Maybe you could also answer these further question why is Barack Obama not releasing his school records? Could this be because they might contain different birth information from his Hawaiian birth certificate? While you are at it you might consider why it is reported that Obama's grandmother tells people that her grandson, who she saw born in Kenya, is going to be the next president of the United States? All interesting questions, made all the more interesting because Barack Obama is keeping so much of his past a secret.
Finally I am rather confused that you claim that John McCain hasn't released all of his medical details. Perhaps you have missed the release of 1173 pages of his medical records as reported in The Times some months ago.
Re: While you are at it you might consider why it is reported that Obama's grandmother tells people that her grandson, who she saw born in Kenya, is going to be the next president of the United States.
IF this is your evidence, please show it. Show the text of her remarks. Or, show where a tape of her making the remarks can be obtained.
Philip Barr has said that he has such a tape. But he has not released it. He has not played it to anyone. IF he had such a tape, with only a few days left in the election, you would think that he would play it.
Why hasn't he played it? Maybe because it does not exist.
Re Obamas school records. Who was it said that it was expected of young people to be socialists or communists. If he was, what the hell.
There's plenty of precedent. In the last election neither candidate released their college records. Neither were very good students.
I'll tell you what, I will push for Barack Obama's grandmother's tape to be broadcast when the LA Times allows the tape they admit they have of Barack Obama praising the rather unpleasant Palestinian Rashid Khalidi.
You know that there are a lot of questions about Barack Obama's post, like the media you seem happy not to delve too deep - are you scared of what you might find?
I will offer a curious analysis of this entire episode. First, to have played out this entire game...from three years ago...and to have known that your birth certificate and birth are suspect...and to have deceived millions of people over the globe...would invite a tremendous angry reaction.
Added to this...is the Supreme Court's reaction if Obama doesn't provide the certificate...which is what I believe will happen. The court will likely move to the next step and ask federal officals to go to Hawaii and personally take possession of the document...which will be a huge media event.
Finally, if disqualifed...you have to remember that the electors are actually free to vote for anyone they really want to. They are NOT sworn to one candidate. I believe if Obama was disqualified, then the Obama delegates would naturally go and vote for Biden, without much discussion. The electors are simply required to arrive on a particular day and cast one vote. If there is disagreement and sufficient number get instructions from that state not to vote...then the 270 point might not be reached...then the one vote scene is finished and we move onto the back-up plan written into the constitution. The chances of this? Well...Florida and North Carolina might provide such instructions. The consitution really isn't clear from this point with this kind of scenario. Can Joe Biden pick a VP? Probably so. Could the party ask Hillary to stand in? I doubt it...there aren't any rules to forbid this, but it would seem unlikely.
Frankly, if we get to this point...the Republic is doomed...and bound for a long period of misery and woes.
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