Obama Citizenship

WND: Sen. Kyl Relies on Snopes.com for Eligibility Question

By Phil

As if one Senator’s completely irrational view of eligibility enforcement weren’t enough, WorldNetDaily is now reporting that apparently Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) thinks certain private web sites are good enough to confirm eligibility:

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., has referred constituents raising concerns over President Obama’s eligibility to occupy the Oval Office to an online “fact” organization that relies for its answer partly on information from the Obama campaign. …

The response from Kyl to a voter who asked about Obama’s ability to meet the constitutional requirements for president said:

Thank you for your recent e-mail. Senator Obama meets the constitutional requirements for presidential office. Rumors pertaining to his citizenship status have been circulating on the Internet, and this information has been debunked by Snopes.com, which investigates the truth behind Internet rumors.

Multiple attempts by WND through calls to Kyl’s Washington and Arizona offices to obtain comment from him or his staff were unsuccessful.

The Snopes explanation to which Kyl directed constituents refers back to another website, FactCheck, which in turn cites as documentation of Obama’s Hawaiian birth a “Certificationof Live Birth” that the Obama campaign posted online during 2008.

The Snopes explanation notes that there could have been citizenship issues for Obama, except for the confirmation from FactCheck via the Obama campaign that Obama actually was born in the United States.

Critics, however, have pointed out that the “Certification of Live Birth” posted online is not, in fact, the same as a “Birth Certificate,” and COLBs have been issued by Hawaii to parents whose children are not even born in the state.

“Do you see the ridiculousness of this response? ? Snopes.com (a left-wing website) is now the arbiter of who is and isn’t qualified to be president,” said the voter who received the response. The person’s identity was withheld for this report.

“I thought it was our elected representatives in Congress that were responsible for that!” …

The Snopes explanation notes that the Constitution’s requirement that presidents be a natural born citizen isn’t simple.

The website states, “What qualifies a person for natural-born citizenship status under U.S. law can be quite complicated, depending on factors such as where the person was born, when he was born, where he and his parents lived, and the nationalities of his parents.”

The site notes Obama’s mother was a natural born citizen, but his father was Kenyan, and “his parents may or may not have been legally married in the eyes of the U.S. law.”

It also cites U.S. law at the time: “If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16.”

Obama’s mother was only 18, so she would not have met the qualification for having lived five years in the U.S. after the age of 16.

“The fact is, the qualifications listed in the example quoted above are moot because they refer to someone who was born outside the United States. Since Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, they do not apply to him,” the site said.

Time to go point-by-point on the pertinent aspects of this report:

1. Sen. Kyl is basing his belief in the President’s eligibility on a privately-owned web site while simultaneously saying that other privately-owned web sites promulgate a different view. Sen. Kyl should instead be referring to official State and/or federal records to determine eligiblity, not the private sector.
2. There is no evidence to suggest that Snopes.com has an agenda that coincides with President Obama. In fact, an email circulated by an unknown originator point to an alternative site, TruthOrFiction.com, that similarly disclaims any liberal bias.
3. Two postings especially pertinent to the issue do not address anything about eligibility on the part of the certification:
   1. Claim: Mother too young
   2. Claim: Certification is a forgery

Once again, we have another Senator who essentially is relying on hearsay to confirm his viewpoint that the President is eligible for the presidency.

Further, he is conspicuously silent over the fact that the electoral process of electing and certifying a candidate for President is in no way legally obligated to vet that candidate for eligibility. In the past, this has typically taken place in the court of public opinion via the press and political parties, and the candidate might have offered their credentials of their own recognizance.

However, to date, there is no legal obligation on the part of a candidate to furnish their credentials for eligibility. And while the Constitution only addresses what eligibility is (staying general enough to allow the Legislative branch some leeway on the issue), it does not address how enforcement is to take place.

Therefore, based on the Tenth Amendment, it is clear to the casual observer that if the federal government chooses to do nothing about eligibility, it’s time for the States to speak up. To date, three are doing just that:

• Oklahoma
• Arizona
• Missouri

-Phil

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on March 06, 2009 (boomark / email).