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@SarahPalinUSA: Obama Birth Certificate ?Fair Question;? Campaign Lax on Vetting

By Phil

Through scads of much discussion on my site concerning the issue of whether or not Mr. Obama is constitutionally qualified to be President, I have always maintained the stance that not only do I not know for sure the answer to this question, I have similarly maintained that there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking the question.

Further, I’ve recently discussed the fact that there has only been one known organization who has ever allegedly had Mr. Obama’s Hawaiian certification of live birth in hand, but it appears that nobody else throughout the media or, more importantly, properly-credentialed examiners have ever actually inspected the physical document. And while it’s nothing new that the one known organization, FactCheck.org, a third-party organization with a blog, has allegedly had the certification, nobody there appears to have the proper credentials to verify the alleged document’s efficacy.

Of course, this is one aspect of Mr. Obama’s background that appears so shady, with no original documentation publicly available to verify. The other major aspect is his at birth status as a British citizen, back when Kenya was a British colony.

And now we have She Who Would Be President ™ apparently making some very big waves with both the chattering class and the blogosphere specifically stating, as I’ve just laid out (and have been doing so for more than a year), that the eligibility question — or any question that the “electorate” (read: We, The People) chooses to ask of a public official — is a “fair question” (scroll to approximately 6:30 in the following YouTube video of the Rusty Humphries radio show — h/t LibertarianRepublican):

Transcript (via HotAir.com):

RUSTY: Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?

SARAH: I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue. I don?t have a problem with that. I don?t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue ?cause I think there are enough members of the electorate who still want answers.

RUSTY: Do you think it?s a fair question to be looking at?

SARAH: I think it?s a fair question, just like I think past associations and past voting record ? all of that is fair game. You know, I?ve got to tell you, too: I think our campaign, the McCain/Palin campaign didn?t do a good enough job in that area. We didn?t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were and perhaps what their future plans were. And I don?t think that that was fair to voters to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of the things that now we?re seeing made manifest in the administration.

RUSTY: I mean, truly, if your past is fair game and your kids are fair game, certainly Obama?s past should be. I mean, we want to treat men and women equally, right?

SARAH: Hey, you know, that?s a great point, in that weird conspiracy-theory freaky thing that people talk about that Trig isn?t my real son. And a lot of people say, ?Well you need to produce his birth certificate! You need to prove that he?s your kid!? Which we have done. But yeah, so maybe we could reverse that and use the same [unintelligible]-type thinking on them.

Before I analyze what she’s said and how she followed up this interview, I’ll continue with additional coverage. See also Ben Smith (Politico), Pamela Geller (AtlasShrugs), and DailyKOS.

Law professor and US senatorial candidate Andy Martin had this to say:

Ben Smith and Jed Lewison of Huffington Post (and Politico.com?) falsely claim that ?FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate.? That is a bald-faced lie:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
2009/12/03/palin-goes-birther-
obama_n_379634.html

FACT: Obama?s ORIGINAL Hawai?i birth certificate has never been seen by FactCheck.Org or anyone else except possibly Dr. Chiyome Fukino of the State of Hawai?i Health Department. What Smith, Lewison and FactCheck.org saw is a laser print-out of information contained in a computer database. Nothing more. Why do these ?journalists? keep lying to the public and claiming a print-out is a ?copy?? Why? Whose cause are they really serving with their lies?

FACT: Neither Sarah Palin nor I are ?birthers.? ?Birther” is a term that the bogus media have invented to disparage persons who make legitimate inquiries about Obama?s origins in Hawai’i.

I have conducted on the scene scholarly research about Obama?s roots in Hawai?i. Our new movie could be released as early as next week: ?Obama: The Hawai?i Years.?

What I have asked Hawai?i officials to do is produce their original ?ribbon? copy of Obama?s 1961 birth certificate. (For those of you not old enough to know what a ?ribbon copy? is, ancient devices known as “typewriters” used ?ribbons? to make impressions on paper. Cormac McCarthy?s original 1963 typewriter is about to be auctioned as an antique. The original copy of a document, i.e. the one which the typewriter ribbon actually touched, was known as the ?ribbon copy.?)

Hawai?i officials have never released Obama?s ribbon copy of his birth certificate, despite many demands, lawsuits, etc. I am continuing my litigation for access. Because I am currently a candidate for U. S. Senator [www.AndyforUSSenator.com], I was unable to actively pursue the litigation in August-November, but we are gearing up to go back to Hawai?i to pry loose the original, 1961 document once funds are available.

FactCheck.org does not claim that the bogus ?original? they saw is in fact the 1961 document, or that their ?document? is a photocopy of the original typewritten 1961 piece of paper. On its face the document purports to be nothing more than a database printout. Is this print-out a ?legal? document? Yes, it is. But it is not a copy of Obama?s original birth record.

What is the significance of the missing document? The laser-printed output contains significantly less birth information than the original typewritten 1961 certificate.

So where do Sarah Palin and I on the one hand, and ?birthers? differ? I have never stated that Obama was born anywhere but Hawai?i; nor, to the best of my knowledge has Governor Palin. We just want to review the original 1961 Hawai’i document to see what information Obama has concealed. It is a perfectly reasonable request to examine the original document because, love him or hate him, Obama is a figure in American history and his original birth document is a historical archive.

And from AmericanPower:

Sister Toldjah offers an interpretation, “Why did you have to go there, Sarah?

Sarah Palin is right in that this is a ?legitimate issue? to raise ? but because the left crucifies her for every statement she makes and how her statements get magnified to the nth degree by the left?s associates in the mainstream media (as is happening now), a better way for her to have put it is that it is a legitimate issue for others to pursue, but that she?s ?not interested in doing so and instead desires to remain focused on the things he?s doing as President that are destroying America?s fundamental ideals.? In fact, she said as much in her follow-up statement to her remarks, but of course follow-up statements look like ?clean-up? after the fact, and no one but loyal supporters will care. Handling it in this manner would have put her ?above the fray? and given the left less to no ammo, while at the same time, she would still be holding true to her correct standard that the issue is ?fair game.?

And that’s the thing: The fact is that President Obama’s presidential eligibility remains a major constitutional question, mainly because he’s never been completely open and forthcoming about the official documentation of his birth.

Nice Deb has a little roundup. It’s not just extremist birthers who’re asking questions. See, “Sarah Palin On Rusty Humphries Show: ?Birth Certificate Fair Game? …

Chris Wysocki links, “How to dispel the birthers once and for all.”

Before I get to Sarah’s Facebook statement (and the wrong interpretation thereof), let’s focus on what she did say in the interview.

Her first paragraph response shows that Sarah is obviously quite constitutionally federalistic in her approach to governing. She is not telling the “electorate” (again, that’s we, the People) what to believe; instead, she is affirming that the electorate have every right to question their elected officials, and she is smartly not getting between the grassroots and politicians.

In the second paragraph, Sarah takes the opportunity to dispel the myth that somehow the McCain/Palin campaign performed a reasonable job at vetting their opposition. This is a key point to a bulk of commentary on The Right Side of Life essentially saying, “Well, if this issue were really legitimate, why didn’t the McCain/Palin campaign decide to make an issue of it?”

The third paragraph is really the pièce de résistance: the bizarre conspiracy — labeled by some as “Trig Truthers” — that somehow Sarah’s youngest son with Down’s syndrome is really not hers (incidentally, yes, I believe this is a “bizarre” conspiracy, but holding to my own intellectual honesty, if someone really wants to think that way, they can go knock themselves out — I bet Sarah doesn’t care!). But Trig is not the issue here; the issue is the demands to see his birth certificate juxtaposed with the castigations against those of us who question the President’s history. Somehow the Left in America thinks it’s OK to question Sarah Palin’s personal history, but when it comes to Barack Obama, it appears that he’s off limits to such pointed questions.

So, how did Sarah follow up to the interview? With the following Facebook comment (and, boy, you should see the comments left by readers!):

Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I?ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask… which they have repeatedly. But at no point ? not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews ? have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.

Of course, various media outlets — including Atlanta’s AJC — have spun the interpretation of the last sentence to suggest that, somehow, Sarah is backing off of what she said during the Humphries interview. One blog, SarahsAccomplishments, mentions the following:

I hope that people will agree that Sarah Palin did the right thing. She was asked a question and she answered it truthfully! Governor Palin clearly stated that voters have the right to ask candidates for information. Then she mentions that in the 2008 election, the left continuously asked for proof that Trig was indeed her child. Sarah never, not once, asked Obama to show proof that he was an American citizen!

She also never said that she wouldn’t support asking the President to produce his bona fides, nor has she ever said that he already has produced such documentation.

Via WyBlog:

See the following links regarding the eligibility saga:

• The background:
  • Obama?s Presidential Eligibility: What You Need to Know
  • Obama’s Sealed Background Documentation
  • Obama Citizenship Facts
  • What’s the Difference Between a Birth Certification Versus a Birth Certificate
• The questions:
  • Leo Donofrio Affirms FightTheSmears.com?s Obama Citizenship Admission
  • Fallible FactCheck.org: TheBirthers, Donofrio Cause Change on Obama Citizenship
  • Newsmax.com: Obama Birth Certificate Not Released
  • Keyes v. Lingle: Forensic Examiner and IT Expert Disprove Certification of Live Birth
  • The State Department and Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) Natural Born Citizen Resolution (April 10, 2008)
  • Citizen Grand Jury Updates and Eligibility Lawsuit Listing

-Phil

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Photo courtesy NiceDeb

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on December 05, 2009 (boomark / email).