Mark Kirsnis: Obama approval rating’s so low, Kenyan television is reporting proof that Obama was born in the USA.

Jonah Goldberg, in his emailed newsletter which just arrived, shares pretty much my own perspective on Obama’s birth certificate.

Frankly, I’m perfectly happy Obama released his birth certificate. I always thought that the only thing worse than the birthers being wrong would be the birthers being right.

Igniting a whacky constitutional crisis because Barack Obama spent a few weeks or months in Kenya as an infant seemed like madness to me. Throwing out the first black president in the middle of his presidency would be absurdly difficult, painful, and counterproductive in every way, dredging up a level of biliousness this country has rarely if ever seen. And at the end of the process, even if a “birther Congress” could have successfully impeached and removed the guy for being ineligible, we would have . . . President Joe Biden.

(By the way, I’ve long pondered what a Biden presidency would look like. I think the Lloyd Bridges character in Airplane! gives us a good sense of what Biden’s presidential leadership style would be.) ...

I got a lot of grief from the usual types for asking why Obama dragged this out as long as he did. I still think it’s a perfectly legitimate question.

It seems to me that if there was no “there” there this whole time, the responsible thing would have been for a junior deputy assistant press secretary to release the thing over two years ago.

Think about it. Liberal surrogates in and out of the press and the administration have been saying for two years that the birthers are discrediting the Republican party. They’re racist. They’re nuts. They’re trying to tear down the president and the country with their paranoia. And yet Obama could have put the whole thing to rest with five minutes of paper shuffling. The White House only asked Hawaii for the birth certificate last week. And this was after we’d been told incessantly that Hawaii couldn’t find or couldn’t release the long-form birth certificate.

(Never mind that we never heard anything like the same level of outrage and dismay over the “truther” conspiracy theories, which A) were more widely held on the left than birtherism has been on the right and B) were far, far more repugnant. One theory held that a politician was hiding something on his birth certificate for political reasons. The other theory held that the United States government from the president down systematically planned and carried out the worst terrorist attack in American history and then successfully covered it up with the help of nearly all of our elite institutions.)

It seems to me the strategists around Obama liked it this way. They thought they could exploit the birthers the way Clinton exploited the militias. Keeping the story in the news by letting the birthers drive themselves nuts helped them. The press helped, too. Did you ever notice how whenever a Republican denounced the birthers or dismissed the issue, the press would often cast it as a tactical move to win moderates, not an act of conviction?

During the week of news coverage that Obama says was dominated by the birther issue, you were something like 35 times more likely to hear about the subject on CNN or MSNBC. Do you think those outlets framed the issue in a light favorable to the birthers or to the president? (Even now, the only media types really eager to prop up the birthers as a serious force are MSNBC hosts and their freelance producers at Media Matters & Co., who want to use the topic for guilt by association.)

Trump changed the equation. As odd as it is to me personally, Trump is a mainstream figure and his birtherism wasn’t discrediting the GOP because he’s not identified as a “real” Republican. And given the awful economy and the general pessimism out there, the birther thing had more salience culturally (which is unfortunate).

But also, Obama has been cultivating his image as the “grown-up.” The White House has been trying to position Obama as the adult in the room, above the squabbling parties. Releasing the birth certificate now and having the president denounce “silliness” and “distractions” was a great way to get that message out there.

Or at least it seemed that way. My hunch is that Americans are starting to figure who Obama really is—and the answer, as always, has nothing to do with his birth certificate.

The theory that he was born in Kenyan would have disqualified him from office on the basis of an alleged clause in a pre-1970 Naturalization Law, which apparently excluded from citizenship the child of an under-aged female American citizen by a non-American father who gave birth outside the US.

Jus sanguinis and the 14th Amendment would probably have caused such a clause to fail in a court test anyway, and Jonah Goldberg is perfectly correct in arguing that we want to remove Obama electorally, and not by a technicality in order to promote Joe Biden.

But it still makes no sense for Obama to have refused to release that long-form birth certificate.

Frank Fleming has examined it and concludes that it must be real.

——————————————————
Tommy De Seno attempts (not very persuasively) to dispel skepticism provoked by the “layered birth certificate image” issue.

As I understand it, if you scan an image to a pdf, there are no layers. You basically get a photograph. However, if you use a software like Photoshop and change things, you get layers – the original image and the new image layered on top of one another.

Or so I thought.

I went online to read the 411 from folks who claim to know much about this sort of thing. I got lost in conversations about OCR and halos and other geeky things. All I accomplished was to become intimidated. Both sides sounded convincing, I assume because I know so little about computers that I’m easy to convince.

Before this thing gets out of control, the makers of Adobe and Photoshop need to come out with a joint statement and explain what is behind this “layered” business. Guys like me can’t figure it out.

Another point: Even if it is layered, it’s OK. What was released could be an aggregation of information from other sources of Hawaiian vital statistics, which is perfectly legitimate.

——————————————————
Robert Stacy McCain attempts to put the whole Birther controversy into the proper perspective.

Scarcely had the White House released President Obama’s birth certificate than the “Birther” skeptics issued statements expressing their continued doubts about other aspects of Obama’s biography. One oft-heard refrain was that the president had waited too long to release the document. Others moved on to demanding to see Obama’s academic transcripts. Donald Trump congratulated himself on having pressured the White House into finally putting an end to many months of mystery.

What will be the political impact of this? In the long term, likely none at all. Americans who don’t like Obama will continue not to like him. The president gave a sanctimonious press conference lecture—the nation was being “distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers,” he said—but Obama’s opponents have long since ceded his superlative gifts at delivering sanctimonious lectures. Where he fails is in delivering effective policies to address our nation’s manifold problems. By the time the 2012 election arrives, the Birther controversy will be long forgotten, while Obama’s failed policies will (or at least should be) front and center of the campaign debate.

The ‘long form’ birth certificate that the White House released confirms that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was our president’s father. Obama Sr., a Kenyan by birth, was a citizen of the British Empire. While his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was an American citizen, his father never emigrated to the United States, or married her. ... [should be: “validly married her” as Barack Obama Sr. was already married in Kenya, his marriage to Stanley Ann Dunham was bigamous and therefore invalid.—DZ]

While the definition of ‘natural born citizen’ was never made by the founding fathers, in 2008 then Senator Obama co-sponsored Senate Resolution 511 which was drafted to address the status of senator and presidential hopeful John McCain’s status as a natural born citizen, having been born in the Panama Canal Zone.

The resolution 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’;

The reference this bill makes is to,

CHAP III

An Act To establish an uniform rule of naturalization
Approved March 26 1790 US Statutes at Large Vol I pp 103 104

SECTION 1

…And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea or out of the limits of the United States shall be considered as natural born citizens. Provided That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.

This distinction drawn between ‘citizen’ and ‘natural born citizen’ is at the heart of the debate over Obama’s eligibility to continue serving as the President of the United States.

It’s this issue that the members of the ‘birther’ movement should have been behind since day one, instead of concocting theories about Kenya midwives and Indonesian home births.

Barack Hussein Obama II’s long-form Hawaiian Birth Certificate

Only 30 months after the November 2008 election which won him the presidency, Barack Hussein Obama II, stung by repeated criticism by Donald Trump, suddenly abandoned the dogged struggle he had fought in the courts of at least 8 states at a cost estimated to approach close to $2 million and finally released a copy of his long-form birth certificate from the state of Hawaii.

When one glances over the fabled and mysterious document, alleged recently not even to exist as a form of Hawaiian document, on the one hand, one is comforted with the knowledge that the occupant of the chief magistracy of the United States is actually apparently eligible to hold the office he currently occupies. But, on the other hand, one remains perplexed as to why he did not simply release this bland and uncontroversial document long ago.

I think the country is still due a rational explanation of why it was that the president wanted to avoid releasing this.

Nonetheless, NYM congratulates the President of the United States on this bold gesture in the direction of transparency.

Special thanks are obviously due to Mr. Donald Trump, who personally assumed the responsibility for articulating public concern and forcing the disclosure of a fundamentally significant source of data.

Propelled by the release last Friday of the new film version, Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, in three different editions, is today occupying positions 1, 2, and 3 on Amazon’s Bestseller List of Classic Literature & Fiction.
——————————————————-

Meanwhile, the Number 1 Best Seller on Amazon in the category of all books is Jerome Corsi’s Where’s the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President, which is not even published yet, and which will not be released until May 17th.

The new Corsi expose is described:

Over the course of more than three years of research, Jerome Corsi assembles the evidence that Barack Obama is constitutionally ineligible for the office of the presidency. As a New York Times bestselling author, Harvard graduate, and investigative journalist, Corsi exposes in detail key issues with Obama’s eligibility, including the fact the President has spent millions of dollars in legal fees to avoid providing the American people with something as simple as a long-form birth certificate.

Donald Trump tells Laura Ingraham that he is proud to be a birther.

Trump is having fun picking on Obama over the unreleased full birth certificate.

Some news agency reports that Hawaii’s governor is abandoning his effort to release Obama’s mysterious long-form birth certificate.

A privacy law that shields birth certificates has prompted Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie to abandon efforts to dispel claims that President Barack Obama was born outside Hawaii, his office says.

State Attorney General David Louie told the governor that privacy laws bar him from disclosing an individual’s birth documentation without the person’s consent, Abercrombie spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Friday.

Obama is not only not releasing his birth certificate, college transcripts, and medical records, he is also not releasing his detailed legal bills, but Obama’s campaign organization is required by law to divulge what it does with its money, and World Net Daily is able to report:

President Obama has paid nearly $1.7 million to his top eligibility lawyer since the election.

Obama for America, Obama’s 2008 political campaign, merged with the Democratic National Committee in January and is now known as Organizing for America. The grass-roots army that some refer to as “Obama 2.0” is still collecting financial contributions.

Federal Election Commission records for “Obama for America” show that the lobby organization has paid international law firm Perkins Coie exactly $1,666,397.01 since the 2008 election. ...

The FEC shows Obama’s campaign has made regular payments to Perkins Coie since Jan. 1, 2007 – the month he formed a presidential exploratory committee and only weeks before he formally announced his candidacy for president.

In total, Obama has paid Perkins Coie, a single law firm, $2.6 million since he announced his campaign for presidency. ...

Robert Bauer of Perkins Coie – top lawyer for Obama, Obama’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s Organizing for America – is the same Washington, D.C., lawyer who defended President Obama in lawsuits challenging his eligibility to be president.

Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer argues that the $1.7 million spent on Perkins Coie’s legal services since the election cannot possibly all have been for costs related to keeping that birth certificate out of public view.

WorldNetDaily has noted that FEC filings show that Obama’s presidential campaign has paid out more than $1.7 million since the election to the law firm of Perkins Coie. Until recently, that firm was home to Obama’s campaign lawyer, and now White House counsel, Robert Bauer—the very same DC lawyer, says WND, who has defended Obama in many of the birther lawsuits. Ergo, WND concluded, Obama must be devoting that entire $1.7 million to crushing birthers in court. This is a ridiculous claim: Even after an election is over a presidential campaign has plenty of need for lawyers as it winds down operations and meets campaign finance law requirements.

I think she has a point. There must have been some legal filings and reports that had to be done but, $1.7 million is a lot of money and obviously represents a great deal more in the way of legal services than routine, post-election paperwork.

How much money would you or I spend to avoid releasing our original and complete birth certificate so that every Tom, Dick, and Harry could pore over it to his heart’s content (as part of our ascension to the highest office in the land)? The obvious answer, in my own case, is not a dime. Why would I care?

Barack Obama clearly has spent very large and substantial sums of money on legal efforts to prevent that birth certificate’s public release. It is clearly in his interest to release it, to end law suits and put a stop to speculation and charges that he is somehow unqualified for the office he holds but, as we see again, despite encouragement from his own friend and ally, Hawaii’s Governor Abercrombie, Obama is not releasing it.

I don’t think Obama was born in Kenya, but it is only too obvious that Obama must have something to hide. Something sufficiently embarrassing or damaging that it is worth spending a great deal of money to conceal it.

According to the News Junkie:

Concerning Wikileaks, Governor Mike Huckabee said: “If we want to keep our nation’s secrets ‘SECRET,’ store them where President Obama stores his college transcripts and birth certificate.”

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Erick Ericksen:

There is no great split in the United States of America on the issue of the Ground Zero Mosque. Sixty-eight percent of Americans oppose it.

In fact, using the same metric — CNN Opinion Research polling of 1,000 Americans — more Americans have doubts about Barack Obama’s birth story than support the mosque.

Rafting guide rescues 13-year-old girl on Clear Creek, Colorado without waiting for the authorities and is arrested for “obstructing government operations.”
——————————————
Honolulu Elections Clerk says he checked and there is no Obama birth certificate. Not exactly definitive proof.
——————————————
Wilder Publishing offers a booklet containing the texts of the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation with a warning label reading:

Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.
——————————————
Afghan President Karzai reported to doubt that America can win.

Jack Cashill, best-known for the Bill-Ayers-ghost-wrote-Dreams-From-My-Father theory, proposes a new explanation about why Barack Obama’s birth certificate might be worth concealing.

Ingenious, but I don’t see how anyone can invest very much in this one in the complete absence of any actual evidence.

I knew it all along. Barack Obama is not a US citizen. He is a space alien, probably a robot. Eric Spiegelman has the proof. He compared 130 photos of Barack Obama posing with UN dignitaries at reception recently in this 0:21 video. Can that smile possibly be human?

The proof, my actual Kenyan birth record, has been posted here. But, unlike Obama, I was born in Tsavo.... in a cave.

You can get your own Kenyan birth record, too, at this handy web-site.

Run right out and get one. A British passport could come in handy someday, if you ever want to visit some country barring entry to US passport holders the way Barack Obama did in the 1980s.

Hat tip to Jose Guardia.

Divulged by Shiplord Kirel to Charles Johnson.

According to this Free Republic post, an attorney named Orly Taitz, representing Alan Keyes, has filed a petition to have the above Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama II authenticated.

Web searches produced no other news sources reporting any such development. So I think we need to be just a little skeptical here.

The Orly Taitz web-site has a distinct flavor of the fever swamp about it. Still, it has clearly gotten some lefties excited. When I tried to open Dr. Taitz’s blog, the Trend Micro antivirus software I use blocked it, informing me that this site has been reported as a site distributing malware.

Too bad that its reliability is so dubious. This website does offer a sample long form Hawaiian birth certificate, which, if real, would be a very interesting piece of data. Not as good as Barack Obama’s actual Kenyan birth record, but pretty good.
———————————————————————-

UPDATE 8/3:

You read it here first, but the story is everywhere today, being reported with skepticism similar to my own.

Daily Kos’s David Waldman notes that the Kenyan birth record is labelled “Republic of Kenya,” Obama’s date of birth is August 4, 1961, and the new birth record is dated February 17, 1964, but Kenya became independent December 12, 1963 and changed status from a Dominion to a Republic on December 12, 1964.

Below the Beltway discusses the problem with the purported Kenyan document at length.
———————————————————————-

UPDATE 8/4:

David Weigel seems to have found the source of that Kenyan birth record: an Australian birth record taken from an Internet genealogy site.