Eligible to Serve?

Part one - birth issues

by 'tamerlane'


The nagging questions surrounding Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as POTUS have finally hit the MSM. These questions are legitimate, have been around since early last year, and impact the underpinning of our Constitutional law and democratic institutions. But anyone raising them has been virulently attacked as a "right-wing paranoid." With the Obots fanning the flames of rhetoric with epithets like "Roswell" and "racist," a brief primer on the cogent points is in order.


POTUS Eligibility
Article II of the Constitution stipulates three criteria to serve as president. You must:
1) Be a "natural born citizen"; AND,
2) Be at least 35 years old; AND,
2) Have resided in the US for at least 14 years.

Congress, surprisingly, has never enacted legislation to enforce these requirements.


BO's Eligibility
Inconsistencies in BO's life story have led people of all political persuasions to question whether BO meets the "natural born citizen" ("NBC") criterion:
* Did BO gain NBC status at birth?
* Did BO lose US citizenship when adopted at age four?

Today, we'll look into BO's birth.


Birth Requirements
A "natural born citizen" has been defined by law as someone whose:
1) Birth is on US territory; OR,
2) Parents are both US citizens; OR,
3) One parent is a US citizen AND who meets certain age & residency requirements.

If BO was born in Hawaii, then he is a NBC per 1). If he was born abroad, he fails 2) and 3) (as Stanley Ann had not been an adult resident for long enough), and is thus ineligible for POTUS.


Birth Questions
* BO's grandmother and aunt claim they attended BO's birth in Mombassa;

* Official BO bios variably list one of two Honolulu hospitals as the birthplace. BO himself has named both hospitals on separate occasions;

* Published accounts of family friends place Stanley Ann with the infant Barry in the Seattle area no more than four weeks following 8/4/61. It has been noted that circa 1961, airlines banned pregnant mothers and newborns from flights. This points to a birthplace outside of Hawaii, and possibly before August 1961.


Lack of Proof
BO refuses to release his original birth certificate ("BC"), although he acknowledges it is in his possession. Last spring, his campaign did release a "Certificate of Live Birth" ("COLB"). A COLB merely confirms that a live birth was reported to the State by a parent. COLBs are routinely issued post facto in lieu of BC's, but lack much information:
* Length and weight of baby;
* Ink prints of baby's feet;
* Time of birth;
* Signature of delivering doctor, midwife and/or admitting nurse.

The veracity of a COLB rests solely on the word of the parent.

BO's COLB itself has a curious history:
* Originally posted on Kos, then appeared a week later on MyBarackObama.com;
* A JPG image, no hard copy has ever been produced;
* After it was noted that the Kos JPG lacked certain standard elements of a COLB, a new version, containing those elements, was posted on MyBarackObama.com;
* Shows issue date of 1990, but serial # (which appears to have been altered) indicates a 1980 issue.

Factcheck.org claims it has seen, touched and confirmed the validity of "Obama's birth certificate." The document they refer to is a 2007 printout of a COLB. (Note that Factcheck.org is funded by the Annenberg Foundation.)

A classified announcement of BO's birth appeared in the local Honolulu paper, but this was merely submitted by the Dunham family and printed verbatim.


The issue could be resolved once and for all by BO producing his BC, as John McCain unhesitatingly did when his eligibility was questioned. Yet BO refuses.

(Tomorrow, Part II: Indonesian Citizenship)

(c) 2009 by 'tamerlane.' All rights reserved.