OBAMA BIRTH DEBATE CONTINUES

THE DEBATE CONTINUES - COMMENTARY

Alan Note: will Obama's trip to Hawaii produce more dubious, invalid, forged and/or fraudulent birth documentation of some sort?

Is he there in person to avoid receiving a copy of whatever exists officially by mail? And risk someone viewing it?

Or trying to discreetly find someone (one on one eyeball meeting) - a supporter and/or corruptible, sympathetic , influential, employee in Hawaiian Public Health services to obtain some form of document that passes better for real than the inadequate efforts of the versions posted by his campaign and Daily Kos and similar websites.

OR JUST AS LIKELY - TO DESTROY WHATEVER IS THERE SO NOBODY CAN FINDTHE TRUTH. Just as he and his campaign have "purged" anything in Kenya that would indicate he is a Kenyan and Kenyan born.

Hasn’t it been established that Kenya does not offer dual-citizenship? Which would make the statement at the Rocky Mountain News besides the point- regardless of where they received the info. I don't know about Kenya. Dual citizenship typically arises because of the statutory pattern--it's just a result of each statute saying "a person is a citizen if . . . . " The reason the Rocky Mountain News statement is important is to trace the basis for the view that he might have had Kenya citizenship. This "no dual citizenship" argument is very interesting but look--suppose Obama was, as we believe, born in Kenya under circumstances where he did not become a US citizen under Sec. 1401(g). Is he a citizen anywhere? I assume he is a citizen in Kenya. And if so, how does he lose his Kenya citizenship? If he were naturalized in the US (which there is no evidence he was), how would his Kenya citizenship end? A troll who posts as Citizen Blade stated yesterday that McCain could not be a Panamanian Citizen--that citizenship in most places does not result from birth. In the case of Panama, much of their foundational legal pattern was copied from the US. I assume Gatun knew the answer; and I have seen other cases in ancient history regarding Panamanian citizenship so I believe the troll is incorrect. The point however of the dual citizenship because of offshore birth under circumstances where parentage result in domestic citizenship is why the "natural born" requirement contemplates birth within the confines of the U S--so that you don't have a dual citizen responsibility on the President. That would be a risk of offshore birth because whatever Citizen Blade may think about what other countries have done or do with persons born there, they could say, as many in fact do, that everyone born there is a citizen. And another point Gatun made which I do believe is correct, is that there is no provision in Panamanian law for how you would shuck your Panamanian citizenship. I am of the relatively strong opinion that if Obama can prove he was born in Hawaii, he will be held eligible to act as President, even if he was also at some point a citizen of Kenya or Indonesia or somewhere else, unless at some time after he reached adulthood, he renounced his U S Citizenship which I think did not happen. I am of the equally strong opinion, that if Obama proves to have been born in Kenya to parents married to each other, he will be held not eligible to act as President. The parents not married issue is a never never land but it doesn't take very much to have wedlock under Sec. 1409(c) so I haven't yet addressed that question.

Comment:

'Why would they use a fraudulent birth certificate?'

I don’t know, but consider a Kenya birth to be far less likely than alternative explanations such as Canadian birth simply because of the logistics and expense—whether these apply to BHO in utero or as an infant only a few days old.

I fear this 72 hours claim may well have emerged from the “echo chamber.” Isn’t it YOUR theory that Ann went to Kenya only for a brief time (measured in days rather than weeks or months)? We have reports of friends of Ann’s saying she was less visible socially during spring 1962, but no one asserts she completely disappeared. I thought you or someone else here—I’m sure not planning to scour thousands of posts—claimed something to the effect that it was Kenyan tradition to be with parental family and/or Barack Senior insisted on this trip to ensure his son’s Kenyan citizenship. With all respect, I think no to most of that. My thesis is that both Obama Sr. and Stanley Ann went to Kenya during the break between fall and winter (quarter?) semester in school, sometime in January 1961 after finals; got married; and decided that given Stanley Ann had been kicked out by her family, she would stay until just prior to the birth and then return to get the child U S Citizenship. Marriage in the US would have violated criminal bigamy statutes; marriage in Kenya was not only not illegal, it was the social norm to have multiple wives. She stayed too long--BOAC would not let her get on the airplane; and Obama Jr. was born in Kenya. She then came back (through the established 1961 BOAC schedule via Glaskow to Vancouver BC; to Seattle; and to Honolulu). She or one of her parents did something to register Obama Jr. as a birth in Honolulu. In the 50's and 60's there was a fair amount of transportation to British Africa through this route and through Vancouver B.C. out of Seattle. BOAC was not prohibitively expensive. There were cut price deals for students and others related to visiting Africa students which the wife of such a student would have qualified for. No I don't think she was only there for a brief time--I would be inclined to believe Obama might have said 72 hours to cover the fact that it has already come out and someone might have a record that put her in Kenya immediately before the birth; but 72hours doesn't mean she wasn't there a lot longer which I believe she was. No, I don't know of any reason Obama Sr. would have pursued getting Jr. to Kenya or worried about how to get him citizenship--I assume Sr. thought he was well connected enough to get citizenship whenever he felt like it. And no, I don't know of anyone--no single source anywhere of any single person that even inferred that Stanley Ann was ever seen, even one time, in Honolulu in the period between February 1, 1961 (or whenever fall semester ended) and August 8, 1961. And if my thesis is correct, no one will appear. That comes from the Chicago Tribune series which is an effort to lay a factual background for what Obama wants to say in public, particularly in the way of adding to or modifying his book. It's what lawyers call "self serving". Obama's birth location and citizenship was an issue in his earlier campaigns. No one had either the resources or the incentive to do enough research to reach a conclusive answer--proof that he was not a citizen or had not been born in Hawaii was not dispositive of the political contest. In the case at hand, if it can be shown he was born in Kenya, he is disqualified. But Obama knew, and has known for some time that he has a real Constitutional problem with the issue. Partial evidence of that is in his effort with the Sense of the Senate Resolution he got Clair McKaskil to introduce, ostensibly to support McCain--in fact to address Obama's problem. Against that back drop, this is his course of events as to how it might have happened and fit the provable factual time line. This is another one of those descriptions that doesn't set out any supportable fact that places Stanley Ann in Honolulu in the relevant period. Some might remember that she had a "new relationship with Barack Obama (sr)" and had "weekend discussions" which "now involved graduate students". Those things in fact happened in the fall semester of 1960. However it is not disputed that she dropped out of school after the first semester and was not there in the winter semester of 1961. The people who would have noticed that she was missing probably did. But she returned in August, of 1961 and was present between 1961 and maybe some point in 1962--we could speculate that she parted company with Obama Sr. by March or April of 1962 if the report that she was enrolled at the University of Washington for Spring Quarter, 1962 is correct. But the Hawaii record is very mushy for this period. I assume that an investigator could pin down exactly when Obama Sr. graduated; and when he in fact started at Harvard. An investigator could also look for Stanley Ann as a single mother student at Washington; with her child? Grandmother Sarah didn't remain silent at all. As late as January, there were articles interviewing the Kenya family in which Sarah affirmatively claimed to have been present when he was born in Kenya. Those are all now gone/expunged from the record. But enough people on line remember seeing them that there isn't any doubt they were there. You are correct about the wide group of people whose testimony needs to be controlled--in my view, that is why he will ultimately fail. Sarah has now been instructed not to say anything substantive to the press as have the other members of the Kenya family. Everyone understands that it is fatal to Obama's campaign effort if it can be shown that he was born in Kenya--and it is a relatively simple concept to get to what is in fact a fairly small group of people remaining who have first hand knowledge of 1961. Obama's personal response has been to stonewall--answer no questions of any nature. Stanley Ann's mother, who obviously knows, is sequestered. She remains in full possession of her facilities and will understand the game plan completely. And she will have able lawyers to resist subjecting her to a real deposition. What is in process is a classic coverup with a cooperative press. Obama has the advantage of a limited time line--he may only need to play defense until November. His principal adversary, Mrs. Clinton, probably has command of more factual material than anyone else. But her tactical ability to use it is limited. She can't be the person that actually uses the material because that will be politically fatal. And she has difficulty using her surrogates effectively--because she really can't be sure she will get the nomination if Obama falls, or at least falls too soon. All she can do is threaten--and if it appears that she is getting close to a breakthrough with her surrogates, Obama has the option of trading her the Vice Presidential nomination to get her to shut up. That course of action has its own hazards. His trip to Hawaii this weekend is timely. We may hear nothing about the outcome. But it is a fair assumption that some effort will be made to address the paper record with the Hawaii Department of Public Health to come up with a legend that will fit the available information. Hat Tip FreeRepublic