In retrospect, Rathergate may have been the best thing to ever happen to us, as it has turned the entire right-wing blogosphere into a one-trick pony with rabies.

I’m sure Texas Darlin will have this up on No Quarter by the end of the day.  But PUMAs are real Democrats, for realz!!!!

Cain beat me to it. Damn. I’ve tried figuring out what they hope to accomplish. I wrote about No Quarter’s obsession with this, especially the idea that somehow the resolution Claire McCaskill introduced that said John McCain met the Constitutional requirement to be president also worked for Obama, for example, but in the end I think it’s simple racism. Obama’s not white enough for them, and they worked really hard to make sure the white Democrat won and failed and they can’t handle it.

I heard there was a Photoshopper on the Grassy Knoll, but the worshippers of B. Hussein Obama and the Dhimmicrats have tried to cover it all up!  Plus there wasn’t one certificate of live birth but three, that all came in from different angles.  How do you explain that, Obamites?

I’m waiting for the final kerning analysis to come it.  Then the fakery will be even more irrefutable!!

Why won’t the Liberal MSM talk about this!

As Pam Atlas says:  Western civilization hangs in the balance...The Jew may be the canary in the coalmine, but you my friends will be next...

We must all vote for John McCain before it’s too late!  Repent!!!…

I did a quick search, and the word “kerning” came up 13 times.

It’s Christmas in July, is what this is.

Let alone that they are clearly not associated with objectivism, they don’t try to even satirize objectivism.

Has anyone informed Homeland Security that there’s a man with the middle name of Hussein roaming the country and gathering money?  And then he’s visiting Afghanistan and Iraq, meeting with Europeans, and giving speeches condemning America’s leadership?  Can someone explain this to me?

/kerner klink

We’re setting sail to a place on the map
From which no-one has ever returned
Drawn by the promise of the joker and the fool
By the light of the crosses that burned
Drawn by the promise of the women and the lace
And the gold and the cotton and pearls
It’s the place where they keep all the darkness you need
You sail away from the light of the world on this trip, baby

You will pay tomorrow
You’re gonna pay tomorrow
You will pay tomorrow

Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow
I don’t want to sail with this Ship of Fools, no, no
Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow
I don’t want to sail with this Ship of Fools
I want to run and hide
Right now

Avarice and greed are gonna drive you over the endless sea
They will leave you drifting in the shallows
Drowning in the oceans of history
Traveling the world, you’re in search of no good
But I’m sure you’ll build your Sodom like you knew you would
Using all the good people for your galley slaves
As your little boat struggles through the warning waves
But you don’t, pay

You will pay tomorrow
You’re gonna pay tomorrow
You’re gonna pay tomorrow

Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow
I don’t want to sail with this Ship of Fools, no, no
Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow
I don’t want to sail with this Ship of Fools, no, no

Where’s it coming from
Oh, Where’s it going now
It’s just a, it’s just a Ship of Fools

I think they’re convinced that they are the only smart people in the world. Like McCain’s people wouldn’t be all over this. They made a big deal out of Rathergate, and people believed them for God knows what reason, and all of a sudden they think they’re experts. But really they’re the same losers sitting at their computers in their pajamas.

Okay--that’s conclusive analysis.  We have to come to grips with the undisputable fact that our candidate wasn’t really born.

Seriously, though, what is the point?  How ( and why) would Obama have been smuggled into Hawaii from Kenya in 1961 without leaving any records?  Were his parents then preparing him for a presidential run?  And, assuming that he was born in Kenya, the child of a US citizen, how is he any less a “natural born” US citizen than if he had been born (just as a crazy example) in Panama?  Is the notion somehow that his mother wasn’t really his mother?

This guy is a winger but not a complete moron, and he debunks (again) this new “analysis” that Jesse links to.

You know what I want to know? 

OK, so let’s say they somehow manage to prove that the very recent copy of Obama’s birth certificate that the Obama campaign supplied to Kos is forged.  Let’s ignore the “why”, for a moment, OK? 

How does that prove that Obama is lying about his place of birth? I mean in the larger sense, not in the passing-off-a-forged-document sense.  Or are they just trying to get him out of the race on some trumped up forgery charge?

Everyone concerned has acknowledged that this is supposedly a copy obtained from the state of Hawaii in the last year or so.  Presumably he would have had to submit proof of citizenship to a great many institutions prior to that time: the ABA, for instance, when he became an attorney, the Illinois state government when he ran for office there, the feds when he ran for senate, probably the University of Chicago, Harvard, and Columbia.  If there were inconsistencies between the recent copy and those documents, someone would have spoken up about it by now.  And don’t forget that for his admittance to Columbia and perhaps Harvard, being African-born would probably be a plus in terms of admission, so he’d not only have no reason to lie, he’d have every reason to tell the truth.

Shit, the DMV of wherever he first got a driver’s license should have copies on file of the ID he submitted, which if you get your license as a teenager is usually a birth certificate.  And I can’t think of any real reason he’d have been encouraged to lie on something like that—it’s perfectly legal for noncitizens to hold state DLs.

Not to mention isn’t it just a matter of someone going down to the Pubic Records Office in whichever Hawaiian town Barack was born in?  Or a quick glance at the relevant census data?  I once used free online records to confirm my great-grandmother’s maiden name and figure out whether she was born here or in the old country.  It’s not that hard.  I think ancestry.com can do it for you in like 30 seconds.

Opoponax, the Big Government Liberal civil servants who work at the Public Records Office can’t be trusted — they’re part of the scam to get Obama elected so he can give the keys to the White to UBL...duh!

The real Baby Obama died right after birth, and was cunningly replaced with another baby, Who Just Happens To Be The Anti-Christ!!!  That’s why they changed his name to Barack — his real name is Damian!!!

Seriously, this is just another asinine Reichwing Borgasm.  Sound and fury signifying nothing…

You know, I still wonder at what the big deal is. I assume the point to be that Obama is not a “natural born citizen” for some arcane reason? Is there supposed to be a conspiracy to falsify his birth record by the relevant records bureaus of the state of Hawaii? Islamofascist mole nurses in his birth hospital?  I mean, the man obviously has a passport, and the Passport Offices check birth records (they’re damn picky about it these days, I can tell you). So they’re in on it too? Exactly where in the hell are they going with this?

Joe Max, it ends with them proving Obama is really an ALIEN!  From another Planet!  Who’s here to lull us into a false sense of security — SO WE CAN BE HARVESTED FOR FOOD!!!

I don’t think they know where they want it to go.  They’re so caught up in the moment they aren’t thinking about a logical end game.  And the Reichwing overlords don’t care because it’s yet another stupid distraction to keep the proles (right and left, but especially right) occupied…

Then again, the point really could be to attempt to cast speculation that Obama or someone highly placed in his campaign falsified a document.  Even if there was no point to it, I believe it’s still forgery, and thus still illegal.  Maybe they’re trying to pull some combination of Watergate and Clinton’s perjury charges?  Something that, even if it takes a really long time to germinate, or goes in a direction they never in their wildest dreams would have hoped, still gets the job done?

The Opoponax: what they want is to be delivered their fantasies of Hussain Osama X, the Manchurian foreign-born Negro Muslim. What they fear is that he’s going to win. The bullshit emails are getting more and more barrel-scraping.

Here’s the utmost irony: original birth certificates from the 1960s are up there with the most easily fakeable identity documents, and you can’t go back in time and make them secure to modern standards. Heck, if you’re old, black, and were born in the south, there’s a fair chance you don’t have one anyway.

I’d be happy to let them plough sand on this—it’s ‘bang on the table’ time, a sign that desperate measures are all they’ve got this time round—except that this bullshit will filter through to the usual channels, and we’ll hear that ‘doubts have been cast on his birth certificate’ from wingnut radio and email forwards from now till November.

Oh, I’m in no way worried that this is legitimate at all.  It’s just that ‘let’s dig around for something criminal he might have done’ is the only reason I can come up with. 

I’m probably ascribing far more intelligence to the wingers than they deserve, I’ll admit. 

But then again, this Forged Birth Certificate nonsense is one of the most outrageously stupid memes going this election cycle.  I’m a total Obama fangirl from way back, and even I can come up with a million better trees for them to bark under.

“Insofar as “techdude’s” credentials, he is an active member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, The International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, International Information Systems Forensics Association - the list goes on. He also a board certified as a forensic computer examiner, a certificated legal investigator, and a licensed private investigator. He has been performing computer based forensic investigations since 1993 (although back then it did not even have a formal name yet) and he has performed countless investigations since then.”

If the “techdude” guy is so credible, then how come he doesn’t have a real name? I will believe it’s a forgery as soon as “techdude” gets a real identity.

Is the notion somehow that his mother wasn’t really his mother?

I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s part of what’s hiding way deep under the anxiety: he claims to be half-white and so kind of like us, but in reality he’s not just black, he’s black from AFRICA!!!one!~~

Insofar as “techdude’s” credentials, he is an active member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, The International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, International Information Systems Forensics Association - the list goes on. He also a board certified as a forensic computer examiner, a certificated legal investigator, and a licensed private investigator.

“Also, he is a kung-fu ninja black-belt tenth no, eleventh degree, with a dual doctorate in Badassology and Awesomeism and a certificate of certification from the Institute of Kickin’ Ass and Takin’ Names. Also he drives a Ford F-150 no, 250, no , 550 no, nine thousand and fifty which is the model they only sell to super-tuff real Americans and also his wife is an ex Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader who he knows because he was a Dallas Cowboy.

PS He was an astronaut on the moon.”

“Techdude” may have credentials up the yin-yang, but he committed a cardinal sin:  he analyzed a *digital image* rather than an original document.  Sorry, but that’s simply not done.  One has to see the original for an analysis like this to have any validity at all.

Also, any web site that takes its name from a lousy novel by a lunatic is not what I would call a credible source.

I’d also add, in re this “techdude” and his credentials, that pretty much anyone can become a private investigator—I’m not even sure you need a college degree.  Most of those professional associations are probably open to anyone who fancies themselves a spy hobbyist, and the ‘forensic computer examiner’ certification is probably something you can get with a weekend crash course.

I also have to say that ‘forensic computer examiner’ implies that he’s certified to examine computers, or maybe examine other stuff with computers, not that he’s a pro at spotting forgeries.

That, and, as Dan and Foucault say, it could easily all be made up.

I assume the point to be that Obama is not a “natural born citizen” for some arcane reason?

Yep, Obama “was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripped” making him not only NOT a natural born citizen, but NOT naturally born of woman!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHHAhhahhaahhah!111!!!!

He’s only good enough to be King of Scotland!
-----------
Who scanned the birth certificate?  Excuse me, Certificate of Live Birth?  Was it a flat bed scanner or one like mine that sucks documents through the fax slot?  Was it faxed to Kos in the first place? Maybe they used a ditto-machine, since Hawaii is so backwards and may not even really be a state yet. 

There are so many easy, Occam’s razor-type responses to debunk ‘techdude’.

If he’s not a US citizen, how did he get to be my senator in the first place?  With Jack Ryan’s penchant for forcing Seven of Nine to Paris sex clubs forcing him out and Alan Keyes being brought in as a replacement, don’t you think the Illinois GOP would have jumped all over making Obama ineligible as a candidate?  They were blowing up left and right (well, mostly right) and were desperate.

A resume is one thing, credentials are another, and most of those memberships probably come with the newsletter subscription.  I’m no international adventurer because I’m a member of the National Geographic Society any more than I’d be a professional football player if I got a lifetime membership to the Hall of Fame.  But I do know that I’m not worthy of drinking RockStar energy drink.

Anyhow, techdude has shown his value.  Some story he said about vandalism and a dead bunny notwithstanding, dude is not identified so he won’t be laughed out of his paycheck. 

Really, if they want to think he’s foreign-born, why don’t they make an official accusation?  Pam Atlas probably reports swarthy people on a daily basis, so why doesn’t she actually walk the walk and drop a dime on the foreign candidate for President?  Must be her incredible confidence, or her assurance that of course the FBI reads her website.  But whatever it is, I really wonder what it is that makes these dolts afraid to stop a foreigner from becoming President.  It’s almost as if it’s just an elaborate smear campaign on the part of those dorks.  I’m so fucking shocked my hair made me taller.

Unless there is some Sekrit Furrign Kunspiracee surrounding Mama Stanley’s birth and birth certificate, the whole point is moot.

Obama became a US Citizen under US Law the moment he emerged from her body.  Where her body was at that time is completely immaterial.

Really, if they want to think he’s foreign-born, why don’t they make an official accusation?

Because, again, you can look up Obama’s place of birth, DOB, and name at birth (and possibly even parents’ names) via ancestry.com in 20 minutes.  This would get blown out of the water so fast Ayn Rand moldering body would be thrust from its grave…

The amazing thing is that half these idiots would love to see a constitutional amendment enabling Ahhhnuld to run.  The point isn’t who’s foreign born, it’s who’s a democrat.

Up Next: Ratass Rugged *proves* that Hawaii is an Illegal State.

Interesing that it didn’t occur to a “fraud examiner” that the state of Hawaii may have requested that the Obama campaign furnish a low quality copy image to the media for the sake of preventing subsequent copying/editing, forgery and fraud?

Like the people who deal with passports and visas don’t have a handle on these issues anyway ... passports being things that are, you know, necessary for travel to Canada, let alone Afganastan?

Clearly many of you have not researched that of which you speak......
Not one credentialed “expert” has vouched for the validity of obama birth certificates on either the Kos or obama web sites.  Several responsible technical discussions on other websites build an excellent case for forgery of the existing certificates.  DailyKos has admitted to altering documents.  A valid paper copy of the birth certificate has never been produced even though obama claims, in his book, to have seen and handled one.  Obamorobots have not debunked allegations - only dissed the messengers.  This won’t go away until citizenship is proven.

Ooh, it’s not going away! I’m so scared!

Earth to boss drooling cretin: nobody gives a fuck except you brain-damaged types.

Have you looked up the International Information Systems Forensics Association, which techdude brags about being a member of?  It’s rather fun—clicking on their “About Us” link leads to a 404.  As does their Sponsors link.  The page says that members are “candidates” for the CIFI certification.  However, the page they link to explicitly says that “In fact, candidates may choose to sit for the exam without any restrictions other than adherence to the IISFA code of ethics and the exam fee.” So, in other words, their membership consists of people who adhere to their code of ethics, which is nowhere found on their site, and who can pay their exam fee.

Wonderful qualifications that.  He can pay an exam fee!  I’m in awe.

bossmechanic, Obama’s citizenship has been proven. His mom was a citizen; therefore, he’s a citizen.

And when your “expert” is a guy who’s afraid to give his real name, that doesn’t do much for the credibility of his bogus allegations…

Even by the usual shoddy standards of the Republican moronosphere, y’all’s “proof” is amazingly bad.

MEMO: CDS, DND, Ottawa, ON
DATE: 2008-07-21, 0935h
RE: PROJECT “HAWAII”

Sir:

RE: Your query of 2008-07-18, 1634h.

A comprehensive review of American media, including new media, reveals the following:
1 - Most debates around candidate OBAMA, B.H. are centering around race.
2 - Issues with the “genuineness” of OBAMA, B.H. originate in and are built on cultural matrices.
3 - The output of the “right wing blogsphere” is limited to those issues around those in “2”, save for that clarified in “4”.
4 - The backstory for Project Hawaii appears to be wholly intact, save for some “fringe” commentary on the validity of the birth certificate.  (See my report of 2008-05-13, 1733h for further details on our errors regarding same.)

Summary: There is no repeat no evidence that any portion of the American public or its national security apparatus has discovered that OBAMA, B.H. is, in fact, our PracticalityReasonabilityBot v.4.1 (DND Project AQ-8775.1).  Project Hawaii remains on schedule; budget overruns are covered in my reports of 2005-11-10, 2006-05-30 and 2007-08-08.)

Lana Turing, Lt(N)
Special Projects Division

Yep, and the intense investigation will still be going on when Obama puts his hand on a Bible for his second term!

Damn, and here I thought he was grown in a tank.

Just for the record, the last time I went to get a copy of my birth certificate from Official Sources, whoever they are (can’t remember), it looked nothing like my actual, physical birth certificate, which in those days my parents had hidden in a drawer somewhere.  It wasn’t just a reduced copy, it was something completely different that resulted from their decision to store data in some less quaint manner.  Apparently, making birth certificates look uglier was all the rage in the ‘70s, and may actually have changed more than once since then as technology has evolved.  It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that, today, there is no actual hard copy record of my birth stored anywhere except in my own files, where my original certificate now resides since my parents died.

So unless one of Obama’s guardians managed to preserve his original birth certificate and pass it on to him, there’s a very good chance that whatever his campaign released is some artifact sent to him by Official Sources that has no relationship to whatever birth certificate was actually issued at the time he was born, other than a few bits of duplicated data.

here’s a very good chance that whatever his campaign released is some artifact sent to him by Official Sources that has no relationship to whatever birth certificate was actually issued at the time he was born, other than a few bits of duplicated data.

Could that be what’s really driving the wingers nuts?  Deep down among the fetid reeds of their subconscious a persistent Gollum is screaming into their mind, “Trusts government he does!  Thinks it can do something routine to our satisfaction he does!  NASSSSty little Chicagoses!  We hates him!!!  We hates them all!!”

The Opoponax: what they want is to be delivered their fantasies of Hussain Osama X, the Manchurian foreign-born Negro Muslim. What they fear is that he’s going to win. The bullshit emails are getting more and more barrel-scraping.

What they fear most, above all, is that he will win, and be a good and effective President.

“Insofar as “techdude’s” credentials, he is an active member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, The International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, International Information Systems Forensics Association - the list goes on. He also a board certified as a forensic computer examiner, a certificated legal investigator, and a licensed private investigator. He has been performing computer based forensic investigations since 1993 (although back then it did not even have a formal name yet) and he has performed countless investigations since then.”

So this guy’s claim to expertise with documents is based on… several dubious documents. 

(Also, he’s a member of many groups—the important kind, whose names have capital letters.  And has looked at many people’s very complicated computer-type machines.)

You cowardly Obamabots may not want to hear it, but it was simply impossible to have produced a Hawaii birth certificate from that floor of the Texas Book Depository from that angle, and strangely enough almost all the supposed clerks who worked on the document originally have now “died” of so-called “natural causes”.

Avedon, I think that the crazies are willing to cop to that (any idiot could tell by looking at the Kos document that it’s not vintage)—they’re claiming that said official copy is a forgery.  Which, again, doesn’t make any sense, because Obama would have had to submit a birth certificate or copy of same many times over for various things he’s done.  If the info on past copies of his birth certificate didn’t match info on the Kos document, you can bet your ass some Republican who is part of the Bar vetting process in New York, Massachusetts, or Illinois would have proof in his hot little hands already.  Or someone in the admissions department of any of the 3 universities he attended.  Or someone in HR at University of Chicago.  Or someone at a poky Hawaiian DMV.  There are tens of millions of Americans who would love to see Obama disqualified; I’m sure one of them, somewhere, is poised to come out with something like this.

In order for Obama to be lying, and for nobody to have caught it without calling in Teh Kerners, Obama would have had to have been lying about whatever they think he’s lying about since he was in elementary school.  Remember this is someone who’s likely had a passport since he was in kindergarten.

Oh, and another thing.

If master forensic forgery experts found discrepancies in the Kos documents under legitimate conditions, wouldn’t there be some indication of exactly what pieces of info conveyed by said document were changed, i.e. what exactly Obama is supposedly trying to hide?  Problems with supposed watermarks don’t prove anything, or at least don’t directly imply anything in particular. 

If the watermark is wonky, but the information on the BC is intact, then wtf is the point?  All that implies is that Hawaii Birth Certificate anti-counterfeit measures reproduce and/or scan weird, or possibly that changes were deliberately made to the appearance of the document so as to prevent people from using it to forge Hawaiian birth certificates for themselves (I make a lot of fake documents for work, and I’ve already saved a high-res copy to my work computer for research purposes)

techdude is not a professional if he didn’t examine the document in hand. He maybe a member of these boards, but he should be certified from one of the boards found on the FORENSIC SPECIALTIES ACCREDITATION BOARD

He needs to be challenged on his certification. The certifcation boards listed on FSAB are the only boards that are accredited for forensic certification testing.

OK, Repugs, which is it:

1. Obama is a sleeper communist.

2. Obama is a sleeper Muslim.

I’m pretty sure that all the dead Russians the Muslims made during the 1980s prove that Islam and communism are not compatible.

Pick a lie and stick with it.

I make a lot of fake documents for work…

The Opoponax is “Duggan”.

But Luv, that’s just it. Obama is an scary poor black rich half-white middle class Businessman Muslim Atheist Marxist Liberal with a big black dick. He’s large. He contains multitudes of wingnut fears.

“If the watermark is wonky, but the information on the BC is intact, then wtf is the point?”

The ultimate (if unintentional) point seems to be to provide the bloggy Left with entertainment as we watch an endless parade of “morans” on the right thrash around trying to find some way to prevent a smart, competent, and nice guy from Illinois from drinking their milkshake.

Since they won’t stop until the Obama Administration is in the history books, we might as well sit back and enjoy the idiotic spectacle of their out-of-control obsession…

Weeelll, there are some Iranians from back in the day who would beg to differ on that.  They’ve probably all been purged by now, but they definitely existed at some point…

I know it’s hard for the great wingnut masses to admit this, but there were once a great many nonaligned (or maoist aligned) communist groups which had little or nothing to do with the USSR.

here’s a very good chance that whatever his campaign released is some artifact sent to him by Official Sources that has no relationship to whatever birth certificate was actually issued at the time he was born, other than a few bits of duplicated data.

That explains everything, Avedon. The records have been hacked by Muslim terrists.

The Opoponax is “Duggan”.

Huh?  I’m a graphic designer for a police procedural—I have to fabricate a lot of “clues” and “evidence” and the like, for the prop department.  I wish it led to an exciting career as a master forger, but alas, Teh Kerning keeps me imprisoned in the entertainment industry.  I try to use my powers for good, though.

strangely enough almost all the supposed clerks who worked on the document originally have now “died” of so-called “natural causes”.

Oh ... so the Obama campaign IS getting support from the Clinton camp!  Now we know for sure!

Oh, and the birth certificate has been forged ... they changed his birthdate to August of 1961 from 6 June 1966.

TechDude doesn’t need to present any of you crazy liberals with proof of his super-certifications.  He stoop up to a dead rabbit, and it only made him stronger.  You think he’s afraid of you?

He needs to be challenged on his certification. The certifcation boards listed on FSAB are the only boards that are accredited for forensic certification testing.

B-but I sent in the coupon with my $5 and three Cheetos Proof-of-Purchases!

/techdude

That web-site seriously creeps me out. WTF is with “The Jew may be the canary in the coal mine...” Somebody must be high on some major-grade crazy.

You know, I still wonder at what the big deal is. I assume the point to be that Obama is not a “natural born citizen” for some arcane reason? Is there supposed to be a conspiracy to falsify his birth record by the relevant records bureaus of the state of Hawaii?

They’re stirring the mud, trying to create something that will stick, and they seem to be driven by the notion that there is something there, so when their feverish imaginations find something they believe that it is trooth.

The irony is that one could make a perfectly legitimate argument that McCain does not qualify under the natural birthright dogma, since he was born in the Panama Canal Zone prior to a 1937 law that conferred automatic citizenship to children born of American parents in the canal zone. Of course, this really isn’t an argument with legs… but it has arms, dammit, which is more than this crazy digital COLB argument has.

This was way more fun during the couple of weeks it took for them to figure out that Hawaii was part of the United States.

The Opoponax is “Duggan”.

Huh?

Sorry, I thought everybody had read The Day of the Jackal.  “Duggan” is a name false identity which deGaulle’s would-be assassin obtains and “papers” to further his plot.

Please, warn us more directly when you link to her.  Please Please?

Forgot to put in the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3098104.stm

He needs to be challenged on his certification. The certifcation boards listed on FSAB are the only boards that are accredited for forensic certification testing.

Well, good point if reason, logic or Occam’s razor had any purchase whatsoever in this discussion. But as several have pointed out, the whole issue is rendered moot from the start by the uncontested fact of his mother’s citizenship. And even that simple refutation of the whole idiocy has not penetrated, steel-spike-and-mallet-like, to the small particle of brain lodged in their heads. So attacks on the credentials of their favorite pet “expert” aren’t going to have less effect if any.

W/apologies to Ken Clean-Air System, who could at least be awakened if said spike was properly placed and smacked with sufficient force and accuracy.

The irony is that one could make a perfectly legitimate argument that McCain does not qualify under the natural birthright dogma, since he was born in the Panama Canal Zone prior to a 1937 law that conferred automatic citizenship to children born of American parents in the canal zone. Of course, this really isn’t an argument with legs… but it has arms, dammit, which is more than this crazy digital COLB argument has.

All part of the conspiracy. See, that’s why Claire McCaskill introduced the resolution to recognize McCain’s citizenship and qualification for the Presidency, so Obama could be let in under it as well if this story got out. She’s in on it, and the Senators who went along with it are all patsies, as are the Republicans who chose John McCain over whoever Atlas was supporting for the Presidency, because there’s no way McCain could win. We’re all just too blind to see the deviousness of the plan!

This guy is a winger but not a complete moron, and he debunks (again) this new “analysis” that Jesse links to.

And what happened when the poor guy tried to point out on Pammy’s site that this is all a big circle jerk (or as he calls it, a “COLB Cult")?

She banned him.

God forbid that actual facts should interfere with Pam’s fantasies.

You misunderstand the import this.  The Republicans launched their smear campaign on John Kerry’s military career as a preemptive attack against anyone who might bring up Bush’s record of desertion and failure in the military.  The right wingers know that McCain, who was born in Panama, is very likely not a natural born citizen in the constitutional sense, so they are trying to paint Obama with the same brush, in the hopes that they can so muddy the waters that the issue of McCain’s eligibility to be president is forgotten.

Amazing isn’t it?  No matter how unenthusiastic the Right is about their candidate or their chances they never seem to lose their zest for deceit and malicious gossip.

“The right wingers know that McCain, who was born in Panama, is very likely not a natural born citizen in the constitutional sense, so they are trying to paint Obama with the same brush, in the hopes that they can so muddy the waters that the issue of McCain’s eligibility to be president is forgotten.”

If that’s the point, that horse has been beaten to a pulp.  Nobody cares.

It’s pretty obvious the real purpose is simply to stir shit up, and provide more fodder for dirty emails and watercooler conversations.  In that regard, their meme of Obama’s “Islamic” heretage has a whole lot more strength and sticking power.  It’s becoming the new “al Qaeda worked with Saddam to destroy the WTC!” widespread falsehood.

I’m waiting for the troops to come home and have the Reichwing claim hostile crowds of DFH’s spit on them.  That worked so well after the end of Vietnam it’s become a meme that can never die…

The irony is that one could make a perfectly legitimate argument that McCain does not qualify under the natural birthright dogma, since he was born in the Panama Canal Zone prior to a 1937 law that conferred automatic citizenship to children born of American parents in the canal zone.

No, US law has always been that a child of an American citizen born aborad is an American citizen.  Heck, that was English law dating back to 1350 or so.

rea: it’s slightly more complicated than that when unmarried parents are involved, and no-one really knows how ‘citizens by descent’ fits with ‘natural-born’ (though that phrase pre-dates the 14th Amendment, too). All moot, though, with regard to Obama. Worth a challenge in the event of McCain winning, just to clarify the law for future generations, though there’s the question of who might have standing.

rea, there’s a distinction between “citizen” and “natural born citizen.” You have to be a natural born citizen to be eligible to be president.  There’s no question that McCain’s a citizen, but there is an argument to be made (I’m not making it) that he may not be a natural born citizen.

Here’s how nuts these people are (from a comment at No Quarter):  “This could be a red herring. Obama’s campaign could have planted an obvious forgery, only to pull out the real one and embarrass the McCain campaign if they ever choose to run with it.”

Oh god, I’m never visiting that site again.  There’s a post suggesting that Obama’s a puppet because a speechwriter writes his speeches and a team of foreign policy advisers advises him on foreign policy.

This really reminds one of Captain Queeg and the missing strawberries in the Caine Mutiny.

Pam’s fantasies

Can we please, PLEASE, not put those two words that close together again? Thanks

What a red herring this garbage is. 

Obama is a US Citizen.  Get used to it, Cons.

Atrios is right, some people need a new hobby.

Anybody else as disturbed about the “dead rabbit” anecdote as I am?  I would hope nobody actually did that.  In fact, I’m pretty sure it was made up.

1. I can’t say with certainty that there is no crazy person out there that is an Obama supporter afraid of some birth certificate problem (for me to do so would be a logical fallacy), but why would the efforts of one relatively unknown blogger’s supposed expert aquiantence attempt to detect fraud in a document require any sort of intimidation?  Nobody will listen to these guys anyway.  I could possibly believe the story if they were better known, but a bunch of nobodies on a blog?  Gimme a break!

2. Why would anybody AT ALL hang a dead rabbit as a form of intimidation?  Is that some sort of low budget “horse head” mafia tactic?  Along with slashed tires and death threats? 

3. This is criminal activity, people!  Is there a police report?  I’m going out on a limb here when I say likely no.

4. Let’s pretend these danger seeking bloggers really had all this happen to them.  Where’s the evidence that it’s related to the document analysis and not just because they are a couple of assholes who have made enemies with other assholes?

I call BS on that supposed threat.  I’m sure it was a frightening dream they had in their mother’s basements, but it wasn’t real.

They’re all just pissed that The Governater can’t run for president.

When are they going research the kind of counter top his mother had in Hawaii - that could be crucial!…

I don’t get it.  Why go to all this effort?  Why get involved in all these minutiae?  Why don’t they just claim that Obama has been photoshopped into existence altogether, then provide some photoshopped pictures of Obama to prove it?  In that case the bullshit would at least have achieved a purer more Platonic form, and the bekabot would have been better entertained.  (As matters stand the bekabot is moved to an Unaccustomed Ruth, perceiving that a great deal of beaverish industry has been employed to very little purpose.  Sad, that.)

No, US law has always been that a child of an American citizen born aborad is an American citizen.

The problem is that there’s a loophole, basically, about what it means to be “abroad.” At the time McCain was born, the Canal Zone was a US holding, but not US territory. So when McCain was born he was neither born “abroad”, nor born within US borders.

His birth was a legal gray zone that Congress rectified by statute when McCain was 12, but you can’t be made a “natural born” citizen by statute.

The argument that he’s a citizen by statute, and therefore not by birth, is novel but not immediately wrong. The problem, of course, is that no court will touch this with a ten-foot pole, because no one has standing to bring it to court. You’d think that electing an ineligible President would constitute direct injury to every American citizen, but by legal precedent that apparently means that no one has direct injury.

It’ll never matter anyway; he’ll never win.

Chet, to repeat what about a dozen others have already mentioned right here in this very thread—anyone born of at least one American parent is, by default, a “natural born citizen” for the purposes of the Constitution.  Both McCain and Obama could have been born in Timbuktu for all anyone cares, but they’d still be eligible to be president because they are both the children of American citizens.

It’ll never matter anyway; he’ll never win.

Since when did that have anything to do with who gets to be President?  See 1960, 2000 and 2004.

I’m calling the ASPCA to arrest Sen. Obama right now for his conspiracies against rabbits!

To imagine that an anonymous blogger who is a forensic document expert (and possibly kung fu expert ninja P.I.) is being tracked down by Obamaniacs and intimidated with cruelly mutilated bunnies is beyond all reproach!

WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE BUNNIES!?!?

Both McCain and Obama could have been born in Timbuktu for all anyone cares, but they’d still be eligible to be president because they are both the children of American citizens.

More specifically, they are the children of American citizen MOTHERS. 

The dad thing is sketchier, with some requirement for paternal support to age 18. We can’t have those spawn of military fathers in far-flung wherevers clamining rights to immigrate, now can we?

If things keep gong the way they are, maybe pretty soon the Republicans will go to court arguing that McCain is ineligible because they’re desperate not to go into the election with such a comically inept candidate. Snicker.

Oppoponax, the argument is this:

The law at the time of McCain’s birth conferred citizenship to children born to American parents “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States,” Chin said. The term “limits and jurisdiction” created a problem because the Canal Zone was beyond the limits of the United States but not its jurisdiction, the Times said.

It’s that “and” that’s the problem, according to some.  The argument would be that you’re only a natural born citizen if you are born somewhere that is both outside of the limits and outside of the jurisdiction of the U.S.  But reading the statute in that manner doesn’t really make sense, so even if it were to go to court, I would bet a court would find that Congress couldn’t have meant such an absurd result.

I sometimes give my doggie a chew toy.  I think he has just as much fun with that as Ms. Atlas (or is it Ms. Shruggs?) has with this.

I think we should give Wingnuttia more and more such chew toys.  It’s so cute when they get so, well, into it!

Anybody else as disturbed about the “dead rabbit” anecdote as I am?

Did the perps blow-dry the rabbit?

I think we should send them metaphorical Humungatongues to play with, Jim.  The group photo possibilities are endless.

From usconstitution.net, the seventh condition for “natural-born citizen”:

Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years.

So, the whole “controversy” is, in fact, ridiculous.

I’ll be disturbed about the whole “dead rabbit” and “car vandalized” when the “fraud inspector” posts good quality .pdf copies of the police reports on line.

anyone born of at least one American parent is, by default, a “natural born citizen” for the purposes of the Constitution.

That’s just an assertion, though. Point is, for the purposes of Article II, it has never been tested; the phrase isn’t used elsewhere in the US Code; the legal precedents are compelling but far from clearcut. You have law review articles calling it an ‘unresolved enigma’ and talking of ‘two hundred years of uncertainty’. McCain has Ted Olson writing a brief.

This is why the Supreme Court, although a hugely innovative and influential creation, looks a bit wheezy compared to constitutional courts that can give advisory opinions absent a case or controversy.

The other question I have, and forgive me if this is obvious to others, but why *would* the Obama campaign disclose his birth certificate the Daily Kos? I mean, wasn’t this the blog that threatened to withhold their $2300 because of Obama’s stance on the telecoms legislation?

And that bit of pettiness aside, do people these days really confirm their legitimacy to run for the highest office in the nation via a blog? I know blogs are cool and all, and I know the Kos thinks they are totally hot shit, but wouldn’t Obama show his birth certificate to some sort of credentials committee as opposed to Markos whoever?

And finally, don’t you sort of have to show your eligibility to run up front? Like how stupid would you look if you were the nominated delegate but you couldn’t follow through because you’re not American? It would be like trying to get married to a gal in New York when you are already in the FLDS with three teen brides in Texas. Anyhow, I am amazed that it is so damn hard to find two people who are indisputably born in the States to run against each other! We could have solved this in a cinch with Clinton versus Guiliani!

But, but but…

Hilltard Ed Hale claims he has an authentic Obama birth certificate on the way from Kenya. You know, the one he paid the forger in South Africa to send him.

jw, that’s from a statute that didn’t exist at the time McCain was born.  The Constitution does not define “natural born citizen.”

You guys don’t get it. It doesn’t have to logically check out. In fact, that’s the idea - it has to be scandalous enough to sow interest amongst those who have an axe to grind, but it can’t be close enough to legitimate for a non-partisan, objective third-party to waste their time investigating, because if they DID investigate it and prove it to be good-to-go, it would take the wind out of their sails.

The idea is to make the whispers go longer and further and become more renowned than the assertion that it’s all just a bunch of hooey. Or at least to do this long enough to have Obama’s reputation tinged sufficiently before it’s all called out by a credible third-party.

These are the same people that ushered in George W. Bush as the GOP nominee for the 2000 election after spreading the same sort of racially-tinged, xenophobic lies about… oh, who was it? Oh, right! John McCain! Perhaps McCain will come out and state that there’s a “special place in hell” for those people!

Previous post should say “...if they DID investigate it (the controversy) and prove it (the birth certificate) to be good-to-go , it would take the wind out of their sails.”

But reading the statute in that manner doesn’t really make sense, so even if it were to go to court, I would bet a court would find that Congress couldn’t have meant such an absurd result.

They enacted the law well before(or rather - the new law simply copied language from before) there were any US holdings that were outside the limits , but within the jurisdiction, of the United States, so it’s not impossible to imagine that they failed to consider every relevant possibility.

And, indeed, they apparently saw that such a loophole existed, because they passed a law the year after McCain was born to close it. The Congressional testimony from the time confirms that such a loophole was a very real legal problem.

And finally, don’t you sort of have to show your eligibility to run up front?

Strictly speaking, do you? If Arnold the Governator decided he’d run for president and asserted that he’d actually been born in Kansas, sure, there’d be a public outcry, but who would be in a position to tell him he was lying, and that he couldn’t run? The RNC, maybe, but what if they decided to play along?

I’m not sure anybody is in a position to enforce these Constitutional requirements.