12/01/2008
Letters Editor Joe Guzzardi writes: As Barack Obama races to appoint his Cabinet, rumors surrounding his eligibility to be President continue to swirl. Some skeptics claim that Obama is rushing his appointments to establish himself as de facto president and to render any challenges to the legitimacy of his presidency as after the fact. [A Handpicked Team for a Sweeping Shift in Foreign Policy by David Sanger, New York Times, November 30, 2008]
Still, agitation mounts that Obama may be unqualified to be president because he does not meet the Constitutional requirement that he is "natural born citizen." Obama’s parental grandmother has been quoted as saying she was present in the delivery room during his birth — in Kenya. Obama claims to have been born in Hawaii.
According to some analysts, if born abroad, Obama does not even meet U.S. citizenship standards, because his father was a Kenyan citizen and his mother was not old enough to qualify him.
Obama could presumably resolve the uncertainties about his citizenship by proving the necessary documents. But his critics claim he has evaded the questions posed to him.
Two readers offer their analyses; Peter Brimelow comments.
From: Andrew Fraser
I don’t understand the deafening silence of VDARE.COM on the question of whether Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Surely, the fact that the ever-sensible Reverend Manning Marable has seen fit to take up the issue in the video linked here provides prima facie cause to have your site investigate the pleadings in the Leo Donofrio, the Alan Keyes, and the Philip Berg lawsuits all challenging Obama’s citizenship.
Where’s there’s so much smoke, there must be a good chance that a fire is about to break out. Here’s a link to one exposition of the basic issues.
In another lawsuit, one of the most sharply focused, the plaintiffs, including Alan Keyes who was on the California ballot as Presidential candidate for the American Independence Party and who in 2004 ran against Obama as Republican Party candidate for the Illinois US Senate, ask that the California Secretary of State and Democratic electors certify that Obama does in fact meet the constitutional qualification for eligibility.
More is at stake than a mere legal technicality — although, to be fair, any ordinary person reading the pleadings in the Berg or Donofrio case will throw up his hands at what appears to be legalistic double-talk.
But in making almost any case every lawyer customarily argues "in the alternative." For example, "I contend that Obama was not born in the U.S. but, even if he was, he is not a 'natural born citizen.'" What some might call a "technicality" seems to Berg, Keyes et al to be a fundamental question of Constitutional legitimacy.
The courts, however, and the Supreme Court in particular, may refuse to deal with the problem. The Electoral College, too, may wash its hands of the issue. Congress may be indifferent as to whether or not the incoming President is a usurper. The people may remain in their stupor. The Mainstream Media may pretend that the Messiah has come by a miracle outside the Constitution.
But if Obama takes the oath of office under fraudulent circumstances, the Constitution will be dead.
From the moment Obama places his hand on the Bible held before him by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he will know that his will to usurp the presidency has become a law unto itself, higher even than the Constitution.
Obama is a Harvard Law graduate. He is well aware that his life story reads like a well-crafted hypothetical problem on a Constitutional Law exam. Obama knows that the Constitutional meaning of the phrase "natural born citizen" has never been raised, much less resolved, in a court of law.
He must be counting now on the obvious damage to the established order that would follow any assertion, from the Supreme Court or the Electoral College that he is a Constitutional impostor.
Altogether apart from legitimate fears of civil disorder should Obama’s eligibility be questioned, the issue of natural born citizenship is a matter of the deepest significance. Obama’s campaign has always presented (albeit until now implicitly) a revolutionary challenge. From the beginning, Obama has presented himself, not as an American patriot but more as a citizen of the world. He now represents the Third World immigrant invasion in the most literal sense.
The symbolism of the coming Obama presidency goes to the heart of what is means to be an American citizen.
The Constitution implies that a distinction must be made between ordinary "citizens" who are not eligible for the Presidency and those "natural born"citizens who are.
Obama may be, in fact and in law, a natural-born citizen. But why doesn’t he produce the relevant documentation that would allow some duly constituted authority to reach that conclusion for itself?
Instead, he has enlisted battalions of lawyers to stonewall all requests for proof.
Until an authorized party passes public judgment on Obama’s eligibility, the problem will remain a running Constitutional sore — no matter how many people shut their eyes to the real possibility that Emperor Obama is riding into town without a shred of constitutional clothing to cover his naked ambition.
Andrew Fraser, a law professor emeritus at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, was the victim of a notorious Political Correctness scandal in 2005. He is a VDARE.COM contributor (here).
From: James Coats
Barack Obama’s so-called birth certificate is what is referred by specialists as an "abstract birth certificate."
In today’s identity-sensitive environment, Obama would not be able to prove his citizenship to the State Department with his current birth certificate failing to show a witnesses' signature.
When Obama or any other politician travels abroad, the State Department issues them a "diplomatic passport" which is taken back as soon as they return.
My wife currently works for the U.S. Postal Service and I am retired from it. In her position, my wife has processed thousands of U.S. passports. To obtain a passport, you need a viable birth certificate. There are two elements of a birth certificate that, if missing, disqualify you from obtaining a passport:
These elements are missing from Obama’s birth certificate. My professional evaluation is that Obama is an illegal alien is subject to deportation.
To support my argument, I encourage you to review the citizenship information put out by the State Department.
Here is a link to my website dedicated to passport issues. It shows a comparison between Obama’s clearly falsified 1961 Hawaiian birth certificate and my sister’s birth certificate — she was actually born in Hawaii in 1962. Her document is what real Hawaiian birth certificates looked like at that time.
People often engage in fraud in their attempts to gain a U. S. passport. These schemes are uncovered by small errors.
For example, Obama’s father would not have been referred to as "African" in 1961 but would have been identified as "Negro". The "n" of "Negro would have been in lower case, not capitalized.
Obama himself would have been identified as "mulatto", and if he had been born out of wedlock as "illegitimate" or "bastard", depending on the state he was born in.
Finally, there is a huge difference between a "Certification of Live Birth" and a "Certificate of Live Birth."
A "Certification of Live Birth" is a testament to the fact that you were born of a woman, easily proven by all of us.
However, a "Certificate of Live Birth" is a testament of proof to the fact of "where" you were born — something that Obama refuses to do.
This matter is poetic justice for John McCain. His support of illegal immigration has indirectly resulted in an alien outlaw defeating him and becoming U.S. president.
Peter Brimelow comments: Actually, we have written about Obama’s citizenship (see here and here, the latter being Steve Sailer’s debunking of the idea that Obama was born anywhere except Hawaii. And Steve ought to know.)
Don’t get me wrong. It may look like a technicality, but if Obama was not born in the U.S., he is not eligible to be president and the Supreme Court should disqualify him "though the heavens fall". Similarly, Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky may or may not have been a serious dereliction, but he unquestionably committed perjury about it, and his impeachment should have resulted in conviction and removal from office.
But, as Drew Fraser says, this matter is being pursued elsewhere. We'll let them sort it out and focus on stuff no-one else will touch, like the Minority Mortgage Meltdown and the deceptive non-reporting of the white vote.
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