Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Birthers


I haven’t followed the Birther movement. I haven’t bothered to acquaint myself with the pros and cons of their arguments.

I’m just going to comment on how the White House fumbled the issue today. If Obama is of the opinion that doubts about his citizenship have become so politically damaging that he needs to get all of the pertinent information out into the open, then the way to do that isn’t for the White House to publicize his birth certificate, but for Obama to request that Hawaiian officials publicize his birth certificate.

After all, the document is only as good as the chain-of-custody. If people doubt Obama’s bona fides on this issue, then their faith won’t be restored by “proof” emanating from the White House. For that issues from the very same suspect source.

Rather, that information ought to come straight from the state agency with direct access to and custody of the document in question. That would also preserve some semblance of independence.

Once again, I’m not commenting on the objective merits of the case. Just that how Obama went about this is utterly and obviously counterproductive. 

15 comments:

  1. The fact that everyone knows he COULD have done this 2 1/2 years ago and there never would have been a birther movement at all will also bite him.

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  2. I don't see this biting him, certainly from the majority of Americans who never subscribed to birther theories to be.

    If anyone's getting "bitten" it's the birthers and Republicans who look stupid, IMO. The evidence for his US citizenship was out there, vetted by any number of media entities (and which wouldn't have loved to get the scoop that Obama wasn't really a citizen!). Those that persisted with the conspiracy theory are the ones looking dumb.

    If people still hold to their birther position just because the certificate came directly to him, well, that's their problem, not Obama's. Their position was silly before, and sillier now.

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  3. I'll also note the following:

    "On April 22, 2011, President Obama sent a letter to Director Fuddy, requesting two certified copies of his original Certificate of Live Birth. Also on that day, Judith Corley, the President’s personal attorney, made the same request in writing on behalf of the President.

    On April 25, 2011, pursuant to President Obama’s request, Director Fuddy personally witnessed the copying of the original Certificate of Live Birth and attested to the authenticity of the two copies. Dr. Alvin Onaka, the State Registrar, certified the copies.

    President Obama authorized Ms. Corley to pick up the documents. On April 25, 2011, Ms. Corley appeared in person at the Hawai‘i State Department of Health building in Honolulu, paid the requisite fee, and was given the two certified copies, a response letter from Director Fuddy to President Obama, and a receipt for payment."

    http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2011/04/27/hawaii-health-dept-details-obama-birth-certificate-request/

    This should lay "chain of custody" question to rest.

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  4. Grifman,

    The vast majority of people know that a simple phone call and Obama could have released this long ago. There was no REASON for him not to do so except that he WANTED the controversy. It was created by him.

    Ask yourself: why did he release it now? The answer is obvious. He's slipping in the polls, and the birther issue is being hammered in the media by folks like Trump (incidentally, I don't care if he looks like a bigger idiot myself). As long as Obama thought he was benefiting politically by not releasing it, he didn't release it. He released it finally because his numbers dropped.

    If you don't think that kind of political grandstanding won't be savaged in an ad for whoever the GOP nominates, then I'm afraid you don't understand the political landscape much.

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  5. I really don't think most people will care about it, and I also don't think any Republican candidate is going to bother raising the issue in any way, regardless of how poorly you or anyone else thinks Obama handled it.

    From what I've read, most serious Republican leaders opposed the whole birther controversy to begin with, and felt it took away from real issues that needed be raised. And again, from my readings, most consider the issue now closed.

    As for whether his handling of this issue will be savaged by any Republican nominee, I highly doubt that they will care to raise the issue as it would associate them with the whole birther thing.

    Only time will tell whether you or I has a better understanding of the political landscape, but don't go betting any money you can't afford to lose :)

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  6. Whether or not the observation is a good one, it is a plausible observation.

    However, anyone taking notice to all the flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes and human disasters lately?

    My guess is God is bringing an increase of His wrath on the United States of America for her national sins as she goes about forgetting His Righteousness isn't going away from bringing about discipline upon the human soul. And increasing it worldwide, too?

    My guess is as earthquakes increase, some more tsunamis with devastating effects in their path, maybe a couple two or three volcanic eruptions in the West, Washington State, Oregon or California, preceded by some earthquakes, more flooding during unseasonable times of the year, a couple more severe hurricanes hitting the Gulf States and the Eastern Seaboard in the coming months and some more tornadoes and human disasters, maybe hailstone storms ruining cars and roofs and and and, the will of the people of the United States and other countries around the world might soften turning and lifting up their voices to the Lord like in the days of Isaiah prophesying:

    Isa 5:15 Man is humbled, and each one is brought low, and the eyes of the haughty are brought low.
    Isa 5:16 But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.

    ...

    Isa 24:1 Behold, the LORD will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.
    Isa 24:2 And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor.
    Isa 24:3 The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the LORD has spoken this word.
    Isa 24:4 The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish.
    Isa 24:5 The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.
    Isa 24:6 Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left.


    Seems to me in light of these sorts of catastrophes, President Obama releasing his certificate of live birth is the least of our problems as a nation?

    Not to mention that the fiscal house of cards of debit and credits around the world is collapsing and a number of Muslim nations are in upheaval and there is a world wide decrease in honest paying jobs available, maybe we shall actually come to a worldwide nervous breakdown so this prophesy will be enjoyed before the next twenty years pass:

    Isa 2:1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
    Isa 2:2 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it,
    Isa 2:3 and many peoples shall come, and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
    Isa 2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
    Isa 2:5 O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.

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  7. There's also some question over whether Sarah Palin's son is really hers.

    Of course, the issue is not whether Sarah was born in America, but it would certainly cast a cloud over her honesty (not to mention her sanity) and worthiness of holding public office. If the child is not hers, she is a fraud.

    If she runs again, would you consider her under some obligation to release Trig's birth certificate to end the controversy (just as you seem to believe Obama was under some obligation to have released them when the topic first came up)?

    For some reason, I'm doubting it.

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  8. James,

    Try not to be stupid. What was the topic of my post? How Obama handled (or mishandled) the issue, from a PR standpoint.

    I said more than once that I wasn't discussing the merits of the case.

    The point is not whether the issue is important to me, but whether the issue is important to Obama. If it wasn't important to Obama, he wouldn't do what he did yesterday.

    I'm taking his viewpoint, his objectives, as the point of departure.

    Is that too difficult for you to grasp?

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  9. Grifman said...

    “If people still hold to their birther position just because the certificate came directly to him, well, that's their problem, not Obama's.”

    Don’t be silly. If Obama’s credibility is in doubt, then by the same token, having the document issue directly from him lacks credibility.

    Keep in mind that I myself haven’t questioned his citizenship. Rather, when he publicizes this information, he himself is legitimating the issue, if only to squelch it.

    “This should lay ‘chain of custody’ question to rest.”

    You’re making an argument which the White House didn’t make. Try to pay attention to the actual content of the post.

    I was discussing how Obama handled the issue, based on what he intended to achieve. With that in mind, it would be more convincing for him to let the state of Hawaii release the birth certificate.

    This isn’t a difficult concept to grasp.

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  10. Grifman said:
    ---
    As for whether his handling of this issue will be savaged by any Republican nominee, I highly doubt that they will care to raise the issue as it would associate them with the whole birther thing.
    ---

    That shows your lack of ingenuity. However, I will grant that the RNC has demonstrated the same lack of ingenuity that you do.

    But consider a few things. At least two soldiers that I'm aware of from news articles have been court martialed because of refusing to deploy since they said Obama hadn't demonstrated his citizenship. Obama could have easily demonstrated his citizenship (and he just proved how easy it was by, you know, doing just that), but instead he chose to let those two soldiers be courtmartialed instead.

    Pointing out that the Constitution requires a president to be a natural-born citizen, coupled with the fact that Obama could easily demonstrate this but chose not to (to the point that he let people who were asking him simply to release his birth certificate to go to trial instead) can easily be made into an ad ripping Obama without ever once accepting the premise of the birther movement.

    Further, he lied about why he released it now, claiming it was a dominating news story avoiding the issue of the budget and such. Last week, the period Obama claimed had news dominated by his birth certificate, the Obama administration was only mentioned in 4% of news cycle. That includes both network and cable coverage.

    As an interesting aside, what was the breakdown of the cable coverage? Well, FoxNews devoted 5% of airtime to Obama; of that 5% to Obama, 8% was about the "birther" problem. By contrast, CNN devoted 5% of airtime to the coverage of Obama, and 100% of that coverage was about the birther movement. MSNBC had 10% coverage of Obama, and 92% of that coverage was about the birther movement.

    In the end, I see an ad going something like this. It opens showing how many golf trips Obama has gone on, how many vacations he's taken, his complaints about how hard being president is, etc. Then it shows his series of blunders he's made, from the way he's treated the Brits, to the Russians, to how he handled the oil spill, to how he's saying "High gas prices? Buy a new car!" and, in the midst of that, note the claims that "releasing the birth certificate is so hard" and then show how easy it was, etc. The ad ends by stating something like, "Isn't it time we got a real president instead of a community organizer?" and closes out.

    The birther problem, therefore, is just part of the aggregate. It doesn't need to be done as an isolated issue, but it adds just one more snowflake to the avalanche.

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  11. Steve

    Did you read the article I linked to. There it demonstrates that the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health was directly involved in the process and also supplied a certified letter. Additionally the governor of Hawaii was involved and commented on the issue of the release of the document. So unless you believe that they were paid to lie or remain silent while the admin trots out a bogus certificate, there is no chain of custody issue.

    As for paying attention to the content of the post, I did pay attention. My point is that given the details of the release (noted above) Obama's handling of the release is irrelevant because there is no chain of custody issue.

    Lastly, I don't understand your snarky attitude. I haven't been rude to you in any way. I just disagreed with you, that's all. Is that grounds for your attitude in your response?

    I read this blog a lot and get a lot of value out of it but I really don't understand the way you sometimes respond to people who haven't given you any grounds for snarkiness except that they apparently disagree with you.

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  12. Peter,

    I plead guilty as to a lack of ingenuity as to developing political attack ads. I still don't think they are going to happen because I think this issue is done. YMMV of course.

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  13. GRIFMAN SAID:

    “Did you read the article I linked to. There it demonstrates that the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health was directly involved in the process and also supplied a certified letter. Additionally the governor of Hawaii was involved and commented on the issue of the release of the document. So unless you believe that they were paid to lie or remain silent while the admin trots out a bogus certificate, there is no chain of custody issue.”

    You continue to miss the point. As a PR issue, the White House should pass the ball to the Hawaiian officials and let them deal with it directly.

    The White House doesn’t need to say anything. That’s not a constructive contribution to the perceived problem.

    “My point is that given the details of the release (noted above) Obama's handling of the release is irrelevant because there is no chain of custody issue.”

    You’re making a case for the White House that the White House didn’t make for itself. Moreover, the White House shouldn’t be making the case. That’s the point. Obama should ask the Hawaiian official to handle the matter from start to finish.

    “Lastly, I don't understand your snarky attitude. I haven't been rude to you in any way. I just disagreed with you, that's all. Is that grounds for your attitude in your response?”

    Because you exploit the post as a pretext to unload on Birthers. I don’t appreciate commenters who derail a thread to further their private agenda.

    This is not about Birthers and anti-Birthers. This is about the politically maladroit way Obama chose to deal with the controversy.

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  14. Grifman said:
    ---
    As for whether his handling of this issue will be savaged by any Republican nominee, I highly doubt that they will care to raise the issue as it would associate them with the whole birther thing.
    ---

    I actually agree with this - but don't forget that there will be more political ads run by non-candidates in the upcoming election cycle than by the candidates themseoves. And you can bet even money you can't afford to lose that there will be LOTS of people and organizations out there who will be more than willing to keep this issue alove - considering that there is a lot of polling data out there suggesting this issue is STILL hurting Obama even after the release of the "alleged" certificate - given the number of allegations of fraud now attached to it. Steve is really right here - Obama getting involved directly now makes those fraud accusations HIS to deal with, whether the accusations are legitimate or not. Passing the buck to Hawaii would have been a real good move!

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