Donald Trump has vigorously revived the "birther" conspiracy to gain traction as a possible contender for the Republican nomination. CNN, which has latched onto Tea Party fanaticism in an effort to gain traction in the ratings, has been giving Trump a platform for these unfounded, absurd allegations. CNN has been framing it as a legitimate "debate," rather than the crackpot theory that it is.
I just finished watching Candy Crowley interview Trump, with the exchange titled "Donald Trump and the Birther Debate." Crowley segued to a commercial break, saying "There is not the slightest indication..." and I foolishly hoped she was going to finish with "that anything Donald Trump has said is true," but instead she said, "that Donald Tump is finished talking up this issue."
This is an updated version of something I posted on my own blog over a year ago when the Orly Taitz lunacy was raging.
For the past few weeks, the birther movement seemed to be gaining momentum, slithering off the pages of right wing blogs and publications into the mainstream media courtesy of Donald Trump, aided by CNN and Fox. Sarah Palin also jumped on the birther bandwagon recently, praising Trump for raising the issue.
Different factions exist among the birthers, but all believe Obama is not eligible to be president. Here are some of their claims:
*Obama was born in Africa and ineligible for the presidency;
*Obama has spent $2 million defending birther claims rather than showing his birth certificate;
*Obama's grandmother claimed to have been at his birth in Mombasa;
*Nobody in Hawaii Remembers little Barack Obama
As if that were not enough idiocy, here are other absurd arguments about why Obama is not eligible to be president:
*Obama was born in Hawaii but renounced his US citizenship when he moved to Indonesia with his mother and stepfather;
*Obama was born in Hawaii, but his father was not a US citizen so he is not eligible for the presidency; and
*Because Obama's father was not a US citizen, he had dual citizenship at birth, making him ineligible for the presidency.
Obama Did Release His Birth Certificate
The birther rumors emerged during the election, prompting Obama’s campaign staff to release a copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate. Trump and birthers say this is not good enough because it does not list the name of the hospital or physician; it is a “Certification of Live Birth,” as opposed to “Birth Certificate”; the number was originally redacted; it does not have a raised seal.
Organizations like factcheck.org viewed the certificate in person and confirmed that it has a raised seal and serial number; the unredacted version was later released.
Give Us a Proper Birth Certificate!
Birthers are screaming for the “long form,” but no one ordering a replacement birth certificate in Hawaii gets the "long form." When Hawaii moved to digitize their birth certificates, they had to hire someone to input all the data from the original birth certificate into the computer. This was a monumental job and likely they decided to enter only the most relevant data--which does not include the hospital name or doctor's signature.
Birther queen Orly Taitz claimed on MSNBC last year that Hawaii had “two types of birth certificates–one proper birth certificate from hospital and another that came from a parent, in other words, a parent just could fill out a form and lie.” She said the parent took the hospital-issued birth certificate to the Health Department, where it became the official record of the child's birth.
The so-called "proper" birth certificate is the souvenir version the hospital gives the parents, with the baby’s cute footprints. This is what Donald Trump first offered as "proof" of his American birth. No government agency recognizes the unofficial, unvalidated "souvenir" hospital birth certificate as proof of citizenship. Nor does the health department allow a parent to bring in something and walk out with a "long-form birth certificate" claiming the child as a citizen.
Many people or their parents lose the original official birth certificate long before the child actually needs it. This could occur if your family moved a lot (as Obama's did) or if you are not organized. That is why states have procedures for requesting a certified copy. The birthers have not yet realized that the title of this document and what is on it varies from state to state. In Hawaii, it is called the "Certificate of Live Birth" and does not have the hospital or physician's name. This certified copy lets you get a passport, a driver's license and--contrary to Trump's claim--a marriage license.
The birthers have yet to show a "long-form" birth certificate for Obama from Kenya, although they did try (see below).
The head of Hawaii’s health department and former Republican governor Linda Lingle say they have seen the original and it is genuine:
I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago….
UPDATE: Dr Fukino, who is no longer at the Hawaii Department of Health, and Joshua Wisch of the Hawaii Attorney General's office, recently gave interviews to MSNBC confirming that the "long form" exists, that his birth also appears in a register of vital statistics, that the short "certificate of live birth" is what everyone gets when needing a duplicate, and that Obama could not have a photocopy of the long form even if he wanted it:
The first is that the original so-called "long form" birth certificate — described by Hawaiian officials as a "record of live birth" — absolutely exists, located in a bound volume in a file cabinet on the first floor of the state Department of Health. Fukimo said she has personally inspected it — twice.
She found the original birth record, properly numbered, half typed and half handwritten, and signed by the doctor who delivered Obama, located in the files.
See the diary by Christian Dem in NC for more on the above interview.
The birthers have yet to present a sworn statement by any Kenyan official who claims to have seen Obama's original "Kenyan" birth certificate.
Did Obama Travel Back in Time to Place Birth Announcements?
Journalists unearthed two identical birth announcements from Hawaii publications: one published August 13 in the Honolulu Advertiser and the other on August 14 in the Hawaii Star Bulletin. Trump complains that the announcements were published more than 1 week after Obama's birth. Yet they appear in a list of births occurring on the same day, indicating the Health Department announced the births and not the family, which was standard procedure in Hawaii.
The birthers have yet to present published birth announcements indicating that he was born in Kenya.
What About that Phone Call to Obama's Step-Grandmother?
Trump touts a call to Obama's 85-year-old step-Grandmother from a right wing "street preacher" from Philadelphia as more evidence against Obama being born in Hawaii. The man, a birther, made the call in an effort to prove the birther conspiracies, disguising his motives from the family as fondness for their relative. Trump clearly has never looked into the call beyond the birther summaries.
Birthers allege that Obama’s step-grandmother Sarah said she was present when Obama was born–in Mombasa, and point to a transcription of the conversation filed in a birther court case and a deposition from the man the birther paid to arrange the call as suppoting evidence.
The court-filed transcription was given a James O'Keefe-style editing job, omitting any detail contradicting the birther's allegation. The caller listened to the call on speaker phone and recorded it. The authenticity of the recording or the people alleged to be speaking has never been authenticated. The conversation is broken and full of static, and the call disconnected repeatedly. The family was not told they were being recorded.
The caller pretends it is well known that Obama was born in Kenya and persistently asks for specifics so he can "visit" the birth site. When the caller tries to confirm that Sarah said Obama was born in Mombasa, her entire family chimes in and corrects him, saying she said he was born in the United States.
Of course, the caller has no firsthand knowledge of what Sarah Obama said because her primary language is Luo and she knows a little Swahili. He knows neither. Her nephew is serving as translator, and tells the caller her understanding of Swahili is so poor that they have to translate her Swahili Bible into Luo or she cannot understand it. But her family knows Luo and were there to hear what she said. Who knows what was lost in translation?
In a deposition, the man paid to arrange the call swore that Sarah Obama said Obama was born in Mombasa and witnessed the birth. He also stated his belief that her family refuted her statement because they had been coached. He alleges to have had long conversations with Sarah Obama prior to the call about her grandson (despite the fact that he does not speak Luo and she speaks little Swahili) but he makes no claim that she ever told him Obama was born in Mombasa. Nor has Sarah Obama ever given a sworn deposition, as some Birthers have claimed.
The man wanted money to arrange the call. That tells you a little about his motivation in helping the birther. He swore out the deposition in Kenya, where he faces no penalty should a US court find that he perjured himself. His deposition is as meaningless as Cue Ball's allegations about Saddam's WMD.
This site does a fantastic job of compiling all the information on the birther issue and thoroughly debunks the "grandmother's call" claim. http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/... and is worth visiting.
The birthers have yet to explain how the claims attributed to a step-grandmother he sarcely knew would be more valid than the verified claims of the grandmother he lived with for most of his life or why the memory of an 85-year-old woman would be sharper and more credible than the memories of multiple other people also on the call who told the caller his allegation was wrong.
Mother Jones Looks at the Birther Legal Bill
WND originated the $2 million claim after FEC filings showed Obama's presidential campaign had paid more than $1.7 million since the election to Perkins Coie, the law firm where Obama's campaign lawyer Robert Bauer worked prior to becoming White House Counsel.
The allegation does not consider the myriad of other campaign-related issues a law firm typically handles. None of the birther cases have gone far and the arguments are so flawed a decent lawyer could undergo a lobotomy and still defend the claims. Per Mother Jones:
West says far from bleeding his office, Taitz and her co-counsel Gary Kreep have assembled such a weak case that he hasn't had to spend much time on it. "I filed one motion that didn't take too long, we've had two hearings and that's it," he says. "It's not like we've devoted some sort of task force to this."
Army Major Rebecca Ausprung handled two of the birther cases...Ausprung says she spent a few hours drafting motions and doing research, and she did have to make three short trips to Georgia from Arlington, Virginia. She prevailed in both cases. "The monetary cost to the government in defending these two cases was extremely minimal," she says.
When birther Philip Berg lost one of his frivolous lawsuits, the appeals court ordered him to pay the defendants' legal fees. FEC--one defendant--submitted a bill for $20.40.
Mother Jones says the suits are a nuisance, but they cost the filers far more than they cost the government.
The birthers have yet to provide any evidence that $2 million has been spent on these claims or even a detailed accounting of why the defense would have spent $2 million. If the defense has spent $2 million, the birthers would have had to have spent far more than $2 million, begging the question, who is bankrolling these efforts?
Why Won't the Hawaiian Hospital Confirm His Birth?
Trump argues that the family cannot get their facts straight about which hospital Obama was born in and that none of the hospitals acknowledge him having been born there. It is true that Obama's half-sister, who was born 9 years after he was in another country, said in 2004 that he was born at Queens Hospital in Honoloulu. Asked again in 2008, she said he was born in Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children, which is what Obama and the rest of his family has said.
First, why would she make up one hospital in 2004 and then another in 2008? If she was lying about it, why not just stick to the same lie? Or why not say, "I don't know?"
To be frank, I might not be an American. I have no idea what hospital I was born at or the doctor's name. I am confident my younger siblings do not even know the name of the town where I was born. When asked, I generally say "Chicago," because few have likely heard of the small town. When I first applied for my replacement birth certificate--which does not have the name of the hospital or the physician--I actually contacted the wrong county, having been told by my father I was born in that county. None of my kids could tell you the name of the hospitals they or their siblings were born in (or even the towns); I could only tell you the hospital for two of them and none of the counties. No two were born in the same state. My boyfriend is also not clear on the name of the hospital where his younger brother was born. I therefore do not consider it unreasonable that Obama's younger sister assumed it was one hopsital and then found out it was another.
Trump is upset that no hospital has confirmed Obama's birth. So why haven't they? Apparently for the same reason the Mat-Su Hospital in Wasilla, Alaska, will neither confirm nor deny Trig Palin's birth at that hopsital--because they cannot. It is a violation of HIPA law, which was enacted to protect a patient's privacy.
"We can't confirm or deny it — even though all the information out there says he was born at Kapiolani Hospital. And that's because of the HIPA law."
Tong acknowledged that the center has received daily inquiries from news agencies far and wide asking for confirmation of Obama's birthplace. Much as she wishes she could do it, Tong said it's not possible.
But, really, would it matter if they did confirm it? After all, the state of Hawaii confirmed repeatedly that Obama has a long-form birth certificate on file and was born in Hawaii, but that has not seemed to have changed the birthers' warped minds.
The birthers have yet to present any hospital in Kenya that claims Obama was born there.
Nobody in Hawaii Remembers Obama as a Boy
Trump appears to have let go of his claim that nobody remembers Obama as a boy, which is how he launched this lunatic tirade. Politifact calls this a "pants on fire" lie and offers several links to refute the false allegation.
Then there is the friend of his mother's who recalls changing 1-month-old Barack Obama's diaper:
But all doubts dissipated when she passed through Mercer Island in 1961 with her month-old son.
"She was so proud of her baby, so relaxed, so self-possessed - excited about the future," said Blake, who changed Barry's diaper.
Another friend recalls the same visit for the Seattle Times:
Box last saw her friend in 1961, when she visited Seattle on her way from Honolulu to Massachusetts, where her then-husband was attending Harvard.
"She seemed very happy and very proud," she said. "She had this beautiful, healthy baby. I can see them right now."
Wouldn't these friends have recalled if Stanley Obama had just come back from Africa?
Finally, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Professor Will Huhn at Ohio.com not only debunks the claim with articles quoting Obama's early classmates, he includes a kindergarten classroom photo that shows Obama went to kindergarten in Hawaii or in some other area heavily populated by people with Japanese heritage.
The birthers have yet to present anyone from Kenya who remembers Obama as a boy or the physician who supposedly delivered him in Kenya or any woman who remembers a white woman giving birth to a black child on August 4 in whichever Kenyan hospital (not likely an everyday occurrence in 1961).
Would a Heavily Pregnant Woman Travel to Kenya?
We know Stanley Ann Obama was in school until June 1961. If Stanley Ann Obama taken an expensive trip to Kenya as alleged in the summer of 1961 to give birth to Obama, she would have been (1) flying while in advanced pregnancy--not advisable regardless of Sarah Palin's views; and (2) deciding to have her baby in a region where malaria, yellow fever, and smallpox were all endemic and where medical care was substandard. Cholera and tuberculosis were also rampant.
She would not have been able to get the standard vaccinations against these deadly pathogens because the vaccines were known to be harmful to pregnant women and they were prohibited from getting them.
Upon returning to Hawaii, apparently within 1 month of Obama's birth, there is a good chance that she and baby Obama would have been subject to a 14-day quarantine because, at the time, Hawaii required small pox and yellow fever vaccination certificates for any traveler returning from African regions where those diseases were present (which includes Kenya in 1961).
The Forged Kenyan Birth Certificate
Remember that Kenyan birth certificate? Most people identified it as a fraud from day 1. Kenya was called Dominion of Kenya not the Republic of, at the alleged date of issue; the age of Obama’s father was given incorrectly; Mombasa was in Zanzibar when Obama was born and not Kenya; the names of the different regions and even the name of the hospital were not accurate; it was signed by "EF Lavender"--a brand of soap. The currency denominations were wrong. It was discovered that the certificate was crafted using Photoshop and an online certificate by an Australian man, David Bomford, on a genealogy site. Bomford’s certificate was signed by “GF Lavender.” Much of the other information was identical.
After first claiming to have obtained other copies of Kenyan birth certificates for comparison and finding them nearly identical, the Birther-pushing site World Net Daily has backed off this claim.
Then: WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appear to be identical
Now: an authentic 1961-era Kenyan birth certificate obtained by WND shows distinct differences.
Were the editors of WND just confused before? Or had they lost their glasses? Despite the obviousness of the forgery and even someone who claimed to have perpetrated it, Taitz and some of her birther fans continue to tout it as authentic but Taitz herself only has a digital photo of the alleged birth certificate, which is not capable of being authenticated.
What is Natural Born, Anyway?
Taitz says even if Obama's birth certificate were legitimate, because his father was a Kenyan citizen, he cannot be considered “natural born.” Nothing supports her argument. While Obama had dual citizenship because of the British Nationality Act of 1948, which covered his father’s citizenship, it expired on August 4, 1982, because he never forfeited his US citizenship or pledged allegiance to Kenya.
The definition of “natural born” is not spelled out in the Constitution and has been a matter of debate for some time. Most Constitutional experts agree that natural born includes those children born on US soil–even to parents who are not US citizens. What does Article II of the Constitution actually say about who can be president?
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.
If one interprets this strictly as written, which conservatives claim (falsely) that they do with the Constitution, then nobody can be president, as comic writer
Chris Kelly points out in his amusing essay, “The Constitution Says Obama Can’t Be President. And Neither Could Reagan.”
First, the Constitutional clause does not restrict the presidency to a natural born citizen; it says “a natural born citizen OR a citizen of the United States.” Use of the word "or" suggests even naturalized citizens could be president--but most people agree that this is not what was intended. Second, the wording says someone who was natural born “at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.” Does this mean someone who was a citizen in one of the original 13 states that existed in 1788 when the Constitution was adopted? Or does it mean, as suggested by punctuation, someone born in the United States and alive in 1788 when the Constitution was adopted?
So much for taking a literal interpretation of the Constitution to determine Obama’s eligibility.
Isn’t Obama a Citizen Regardless of Where He Was born Because His Mom Was One?
Why does any of this matter? If Obama’s mother was American doesn’t that make him American by birth, too, no matter where he was born? The birthers have an answer to this, and it’s, “NO!” The law at the time required the US parent to have lived in the United States for at least 5 years after the age of 14 and prior to the child’s birth; because Stanley Ann was 18 when Obama was born, she did not meet that 5-year benchmark. This law has since been changed, and what the courts would decide is anybody’s guess.
Verdict: A Bunch of Bunk
A growing number of people are convinced that Obama is not a US citizen; polls show they are mostly white Republicans living in the South. Others, like Donald Trump, probably do not believe the conspiracy but encourage others to in the belief that it will help them topple Obama in 2012.
These include state and Congressional republicans pushing legislation to force presidential candidates to show an “original” birth certificate. Note that many signatories to a Congressional proposal voted for a resolution last year that commemorated Hawaii’s 50th anniversary of joining the union and noted it as home to the 44th president, Barack Hussein Obama.
Stop Showing Me the Stupid
Why is a growing segment of the US population unwilling to believe the veracity of a document produced by an official government institution in Hawaii and attested to in court by US government officials–a document for which there is supporting concrete evidence with no evidence to the contrary?
There is only one explanation: willful ignorance. They do not want to believe a black man with a foreign sounding name could be their legal president. This is supported by comments and images these people create and post, which evince a deep-seated racism.
The conservative media is highly culpable, particularly Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, with their inflammatory rhetoric, racism, and Nazi comparisons. Facts will never erase the blinders from the eyes of these people because they are only willing to accept as evidence those things that confirm their preconceived beliefs.
The Kenyan forgery forced many Republicans and conservatives to go on record denying the Birther movement or risk being branded loons for life, and that had deflated the movement until Donald Trump picked up the birther mantle. The allegations are now trumpeted by Sean Hannity and bolstered by Sarah Palin, and have found a broadening platform on Fox and CNN.
The best take down of this was by Chris Matthews when he explained how ludicrous it is to imagine that this family somehow knew in 1961 that they had to fake their son's birth certificate so that he could become president of the United States--at a time when some states were not even letting non-whites sit in the front seat of the bus.
It increasingly sounds like one faction of the population is nostalgic for those days.