The Birther movement is an embarrassment for serious Republicans who realize this whole faux controversy is a gift to the Democrats.There is once again confirmation that Obama was born in Hawaii, but there’s no doubt that the conspiracy theorists will find a way to deny the evidence. The Honalulu Advertiser reports:
Hawai’i’s Health Department confirmed yesterday that it has President Obama’s original Aug. 4, 1961, birth certificate in storage, but the announcement is unlikely to satisfy conspiracy theorists who insist Obama was born in Kenya.
“We don’t destroy vital records,” Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said. “That’s our whole job, to maintain and retain vital records.”
The Health Department’s director reiterated yesterday that she has seen Obama’s birth records.
“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawai’i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai’i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai’i and is a natural-born American citizen,” Fukino said in a statement. “I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008, over eight months ago.”
Fukino tried on Oct. 31 to put an end to the belief among so-called “birthers” that Obama was not born in Honolulu’s Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital. The birthers insist that Obama was not born in the U.S. and is therefore ineligible to be president.
Despite Fukino’s statement yesterday — and several court rulings and statements by Hawai’i’s Republican governor, Linda Lingle, the issue continued to resonate from Capitol Hill to the blogosphere.
It is doubtful that this will convince those who believe Obama is not an American citizen. Conspiracy theorists can always come up with a new argument since they are not bound by reality and they typically consider any source of contrary information to be part of the conspiracy.
Birthers will continue to deny that the birth certificate is legitimate. We saw similar denial after the claims of the Swift Boat Liars in the 2004 election were proven to be politically-motivated fabrications. For years after John Kerry’s military records were both posted on line and reviewed by journalists many right wing blogs continued to post claims that Kerry’s military records were never released.
What these birthers don’t understand is that a child born outside the U.S. is a citizen if one or both parents are U.S. citizens. So, even if Obama had been born in Kenya, he’d still be a citizen. What a waste of time and taxpayer’s dollars.
Sort of like nobody questions John McCain’s citizenship although he was born in the Panama Canal Zone.
But, isn’t that U.S. Territory?
There should be an amendment to eliminate the stupid “natural-born citizen” requirement. It’s incredibly outdated.
I agree but wouldn’t the Republicans object?
There was a time when Republicans were pushing for the change–so that Arnold could run for president.
There could be a bipartisan small move against stupidity. Would that be too much to ask?
NPR just did a segment on this very subject. One psychologist said the people who are pushing the birther issue are paranoid. Well, duh – and I could add a few more adjectives.
Leslie, conspiracy theorists (liberal or conservative) are more likely to have paranoid tendencies, yes. Frequently, people pour their borderline paranoia into conspiracy theories in order to function more normally in the everyday aspects of their life. Conspiracy as a coping mechanism. Others are full-blown paranoids whose daily life revolves around conspiracy theories. Witness, if everyone will forgive my joke, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Riley.
However, at the time of President Obama’s birth (this has since been changed), the child of a foreign father and American mother, if born abroad, was only an American citizen automatically if the mother was 21 years of age or older when she left the country. This is the loophole through which the conspiracy theorists are trying to drag the president.
The trouble is that (unless I am totally wrong), neither President Obama nor his mother ever lived in Kenya… they lived in Hawaii until his parents divorced and when they lived abroad it was with his step-father in Indonesia. Which makes the birther theories just silly. Even sillier are the original crap stories claiming he was born in Indonesia, when his father was Kenyan and he is obviously not of Asian descent.
McCain’s birth in the Canal Zone was an issue to some, but easily explained by reference to laws explicitly saying that a child born to American parents (or one American parent and a native parent) in the Canal Zone is a natural born American citizen if they claim their citizenship. George Romney was challenged on a similar point (he was born abroad to Mormon missionaries) in 1968 during the Republican primary.
Of course, if people will indulge my paranoia, both John McCain and George Romney had one unimpeachably ‘American’ quality that Barack Obama does not. Particularly as a certain segment of Southern and Midwestern society define ‘American.’ Need I go on?