Alert the Media: John Gibson
posted at 4:36 pm on December 4, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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John Gibson will have me as a guest at 6:20 ET to discuss Barack Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship status in light of the Supreme Court review that will take place tomorrow. We’ll discuss the myriad theories floating through the blogosphere. John always has a lively show, and this should be especially fun!
Update: Dave Weigel, the Associate Editor for Reason, has this in today’s Slate:
How did the citizenship rumor get started? Ironically, it began when the Obama campaign tried to debunk some other conspiracies. After Obama locked up the nomination in early June, low-level talk radio and blog chatter peddled rumors that Obama’s real middle name was Muhammad, that his father was not really Barack Obama, and that he was not really born in Hawaii. The campaign released a facsimile of Obama’s certificate of live birth. Requested from the state in 2007, the certificate reported that Obama was, indeed, born in Honolulu at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961.
The certificate was a bullet that didn’t put down the horse. Why, skeptics asked, release a new form from Hawaii instead of the original paper that Obama’s parents got in 1961—the one that Obama found in a box of his dad’s knickknacks in Dreams From My Father? They quickly came up with an explanation: The certificate was forged. Anonymous digital image experts with handles like Techdude and Polarik sprung from the woodwork to prove (shades of Rathergate!) that pixels, spacing, and indentation on the form indicated that the Obama campaign had created the certificate with Adobe Photoshop. The state of Hawaii’s official statement that the certificate was legitimate didn’t make a dent—after all, who is Registrar of Vital Statistics Alvin Onaka to argue with Techdude?
This “forgery” became an article of faith in the Obama conspiracy community. When a Hillary Clinton supporter found a birth announcement for Obama from the Aug. 13, 1961, edition of the Honolulu Advertiser, the theorists were unbowed: After all, the Obama family could have phoned that in from Kenya. When Pennsylvania lawyer Philip J. Berg filed the first birth-related injunction against Obama this August, asking that Obama be ruled “ineligible to run for United States Office of the President,” he alleged that the certificate had been proved a forgery by the “extensive Forensic testing” of anonymous experts and claimed that Obama’s campaign had simply inserted his name over that of his half-sister, Maya. That would have been quite a trick, as Maya Soetoro-Ng was actually born in Indonesia.
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Will you continue to say it is a non-issue?
Sweetness0726 on December 4, 2008 at 4:41 PM
Macadamia nuts are key here. I hope Gibson understands this.
grdred944 on December 4, 2008 at 4:42 PM
So… you’re gonna alienate half of your readership, no matter what you say, huh? ;)
wccawa on December 4, 2008 at 4:52 PM
Talk about a bad penny.This thing just keeps popping up.The more he doesn’t show it the more we want to see.
jellybelly on December 4, 2008 at 4:57 PM
How will you fit in Lt. Gov. Steele tonight Ed?
BKennedy on December 4, 2008 at 5:00 PM
This is a non-issue. Yeah well … if it were Bush it’d be an issue but not with Obama.
If it’s discovered tomorrow that Obama attended a Terrorist Training Camp in Afghanistan in 1995 … it’ll still be a non-issue.
Welcome to the brave new democracy of one party rule and no checks and balances.
HondaV65 on December 4, 2008 at 5:05 PM
If you like John Gibson, and you know how he feels about Keith Olbermann, visit this site:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/fire-keith-olbermann
And leave your comments!!
afotia on December 4, 2008 at 5:08 PM
This controversy was started by leftists trying to unseat McCain as a presidential candidate and certain wording used in the S.Res. 511 is spurring on the speculation.
S. Res. 511
Whereas the Constitution of the United States requires that, to be eligible for the Office of the President, a person must be a “natural born Citizen” of the United States;
Whereas the term “natural born Citizen”, as that term appears in Article II, Section 1, is not defined in the Constitution of the United States;
Whereas there is no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military nor to prevent those children from serving as their country’s President;
Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the “natural born Citizen” clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress’s own statute defining the term “natural born Citizen”;
Whereas the well-being of all citizens of the United States is preserved and enhanced by the men and women who are assigned to serve our country outside of our national borders;
Whereas previous presidential candidates were born outside of the United States of America and were understood to be eligible to be President; and
Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a “natural born Citizen” under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.
Clinton, Obama Sponsor McCain Citizenship Bill
canditaylor68 on December 4, 2008 at 5:18 PM
I’ll be willing to bet that after Bubba Obama’s first term, he’ll wish he HAD been born in another country…
Wyznowski on December 4, 2008 at 5:19 PM
Where to find this information.
canditaylor68 on December 4, 2008 at 5:20 PM
The Obama birth certificate and Bill Richardson’s beard… thank God for the non-elite media!
benny shakar on December 4, 2008 at 5:31 PM
Barack Obama is as fake as the Moonlandings that were filmed at a soundstage in Pasedena California in June 1969, the Grassy Knoll Gunman & Vatican II all rolled into one.
Birthgate!
Obamagate!
Gategate!
portlandon on December 4, 2008 at 5:50 PM
None of this birth certificate stuff matters now anyway. Obama was elected and will serve as POTUS. Even if the certificate were fake can you imagine the civil warfare in this country should somebody be stupid enough to unseat Obama over this?
I agree with one poster, though. There appears to be something on the certificate he doesnt want the public to see and that picks my curiosity.
As I said, not that it matters now anyway.
abcurtis on December 4, 2008 at 5:56 PM
Call his little league coach in Hawaii and ask him if he kept a copy of Barry’s COB.
Oh – I forgot. Barry was not in little league. He was a student and registered Muslim in Indonesia at that age.
Sorry.
DeweyWins on December 4, 2008 at 6:14 PM
4 years ago, the Leftists demanded that Chimpy produce every shred of paper to prove he didn’t go AWOL. As the same time, they themselves happily supported and voted for an empty suit who refused to release all of his military records to the public.
Nope, no hypocrisy there.
Del Dolemonte on December 4, 2008 at 6:23 PM
Ed, I have been a lawyer for 32 years after graduating from the Harvard Law School, and this is NOT a non-issue. Obama has refused to release the original birth certificate that would either dispose of the question or show he is not qualified to be POTUS under the express language of the U.S. Constitution. When the issue came up as to John McCain, he did a full public disclosure and hired Larry Tribe and Ted Olsen to address the legal analysis to establish that McCain was and is qualified to be POTUS. S. Res. 511 reflects that conclusion. What, in contrast, is Obama hiding?
The U.S. Constitution always matters, and the election was not held with the proposition before the voters that the express requirements of the U.S. Constitution for a person to be qualified to be POTUS could be ignored in Obama’s case.
Phil Byler on December 4, 2008 at 6:28 PM
Excellent post.
If Barry is actually ineligible does that invalidate the election?
How can Biden be president under fraudulent circumstances to an office he did not run for and was not elected to?
DeweyWins on December 4, 2008 at 6:36 PM
Couldn’t the Electoral College vote for Carrot Top for President if they wanted to?
grdred944 on December 4, 2008 at 6:48 PM
Please do not go on there and characterize this issue as something only tin-foil-hat-wearing fringe lunatics care about.
I thought this was all nonsense, too, especially when I saw the Certificate of Live Birth.
But that’s not the long-form birth certificate (and it has nothing to do with the other issues, such as dual citizenship).
There is no excuse for Obama’s not releasing this, along with his school records (was he there as a foreign student?), passport info, and other documents.
The onus is not on us to prove that he is or isn’t a natural-born citizen – or shouldn’t be.
Since when did people just trot up to jobs and refuse to offer their qualifying documentation? And since when was it the job of the employer to somehow dig it up, despite stonewalling?
We have hired Obama to be President. He needs to cough up any and all records we request to prove his eligibility. HE needs to prove it; not us.
This is so simple that the “defense” of calling everyone who wants to see them fringe nutcases simply doesn’t wash.
And as for this fear that there would be mayhem and riots in the street, I think those who fear that actually underestimate Americans of every race.
Alana on December 4, 2008 at 6:50 PM
The riots would be on an epic scale. Personally, I encourage such behavior as I believe it is long overdue that we thin the herd. However, to think a substantial segment of the population wouldn’t go batsh&t over this is at a minimum, shortsighted.
grdred944 on December 4, 2008 at 6:55 PM
Absolutely agree. Stop with the name-calling, and the completely bogus comparisons with Trig truthers. ALL HE HAS TO DO IS RELEASE HIS BC AND SCHOOL RECORDS.
And he won’t do it because…?
Priscilla on December 4, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Not only should Obama produce his birth certificate, he should also produce all documents that John McCain and Sarah Palin had to show. Example, college transcripts (which would reveal if he enrolled as a foreign student), medical records (not just a note from his doctor). Remember, McCain had to show all records pertaining to his past melanoma and Palin had to show all records relating to the birth of her children. This whole episode is simply disgusting to me. What happened to our country?
missouriyankee on December 4, 2008 at 7:04 PM
John Gibson: Best FOX News Radio talker without equal and the best drive time host on the West Coast period.
ScottMcC on December 4, 2008 at 7:18 PM
How soon can Impeachment proceedings begin? LOL!
44Magnum on December 4, 2008 at 7:40 PM
They already have.
lol
canditaylor68 on December 4, 2008 at 7:48 PM
So propping up an illegitimate candidate is more important than defending the Constitution (which Obama would promise to do when he takes the oath of office)? You’re Obama’s kind of sheeple- no substance or principle and all facade.
Personally, I think it a bunch of drama to fill in an overly quiet news period but I’d like to think that we put primacy in the Constitution and not in the fallout from finding out that Obama was lying about his eligibility for office.
highhopes on December 4, 2008 at 7:51 PM
This is one of those things that would be explored to death in the aftermath of a determination that the bastard-elect was potentially ineligble for office. Can an VP-elect become POTUS-elect or does the whole election become a do over? What if the election were not yet certified? It’s questions like these that make me dispise lawyers even more than usual because any wrinkle is nothing more than weeks of legal wrangling ultimately ending up with the fossils of the SCOTUS playing rock-paper-scissors to choose the next President.
highhopes on December 4, 2008 at 7:57 PM
I have a different theory. Obama’s lawyers are sitting on a perfectly legitimate birth certificate showing that Obama is inn fact a natural-born American citizen. However, the lawyers also know that Obama’s campaign (which pays them) has several hundred million dollars left in its pile. Hence, the lawyers are stretching this case – which should have been heard and dismissed by a court in 15 minutes or less – for the billable hours. That’s not a click-click-click from the court reporters’ typewriter but ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching!
chsw
chsw on December 4, 2008 at 9:56 PM
I’ve read quite a few posts on this BHO eligibility issue all over the blogosphere, and all I can say about the name-calling, logic-deficient defenders of BHO’s “natural right to the Presidency” is that Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, Baby Buckley, and the rest will have lots of company at their next party for the “new BHO conservatives“.
Of course, there won’t be too many parties, because the absolute chaos that will come from people choosing to intentionally ignore the Constitution will be irreversible and deadly. And that’s no joke.
progressoverpeace on December 5, 2008 at 5:06 AM
The question I find more pressing, and pertinent, is what passport did he use to go to Pakistan in 1981 (at that time, a country to which the US did not allow travel)? No one has questioned the Magic Mulatto on this, but then again, no one has questioned Obambi on anything from his past. Only his ‘autobiographical’ novels tell the tale, and a tall one it is, almost Bunyon-esque in a red diaper baby kind of way.
RickZ on December 5, 2008 at 10:34 AM
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