Democracy Has Prevailed.

July 18, 2009

The Birthers

Kitty Pilgrim debunks the Birthers:


Crooks and Liars has a transcript.

Pilgrim lists her evidence upfront:
Now, the Annenberg political fact check, which is a nonpartisan group, went to Chicago to view the birth certificate last year and they released photos and this statement, "FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the USA, just has he has always said."

The Republican governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, on record, she says Obama was indeed born in her state and we should note, she did support John McCain. So, we also have a copy of the "Honolulu Advertiser" the newspaper, August 13, and the "Hawaii Star-Bulletin," August 14, 1961, both announcing Barack Obama's birth.

Also, October last year, the director of the Hawaii Department of Health wrote a letter stating, "I have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Senator Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedure."

PolitiFact.com reissued their results from the investigation they conducted in June of last year and they say, "Since we published Obama's birth certificate, questions about its authenticity have been frequent and fierce. After reviewing the evidence, we are confident of our rulings."
In fact, she missed a bit. There's this from Janice Okubo, communications director for the Hawaii Department of Health:
Okubo, who said that she gets weekly questions from Obama ‘Birthers’ that are “more like threats,” explained that the certificate of live birth reproduced by Obama’s campaign should have debunked the conspiracy theories. “If you were born in Bali, for example,” Okubo explained, “you could get a certificate from the state of Hawaii saying you were born in Bali. You could not get a certificate saying you were born in Honolulu. The state has to verify a fact like that for it to appear on the certificate."
And then there's this from the Department of Hawaiian Homelands explaining about the "Certifications of Live Birth":
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands accepts both Certificates of Live Birth (original birth certificate) and Certifications of Live Birth because they are official government records documenting an individual’s birth. [emphasis added]
So the so-called "short form" certificate is the official position of the State of Hawaii. If it's a forgery then the whole of official Hawaii (with its Republican Governor) is in on the hoax.

The funniest part of this story happens when teh crazie Alan Keyes answers this question from Pilgrim:
Now, Alan Keyes, you've been patient letting me get through all that, but what more do you need to be convinced?
And how does teh crazie Keyes start his answer?

Two words: SOME-EVIDENCE.

Alan Keyes has teh crazie.

5 comments:

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

"photographed the original birth certificate"
Can I see this photograph?
I am jumping on the birther bandwagon because it drives progressives crazy and for a little playback for all the conspiracy theories about Bush.
This is going nowhere as it appears that the courts will be refusing to consider all birther cases
Btw Factcheck.org lied about Obama views on guns. The "debunking" of the NRA consisted of the Obama campaign says.

EdHeath said...

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

Which conspiracy theories about Bush do you refer to?

And which Fact Check report are you refering to? There seem to be several related to gun control.

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

That is the "certification of live birth".

"Which conspiracy theories about Bush do you refer to?"
Any number that were on MSNBC's Countdown.
Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand.
Bush the coke addict.
Seymour Hersh's Cheney's hit squad
http://www.reason.com/news/show/134864.html
The abuses at Abu Ghraib were performed under Bush's direct orders.

"And which Fact Check report are you refering to? "
NRA Targets Obama
http://progunprogressive.com/?p=1073
http://daysofourtrailers.blogspot.com/2008/10/factcheck-fails-to-check-facts-again.html
It should be noted that the author of this latest hit piece , Mr. Brooks Jackson, as well as being co-author of the last one, is the Director of Annenberg Political Fact Check. Obviously we can not expect an individual who states :

“They are lying. This is what they do. This is how they make their money. Do these people have no shame? They are just making this up.

to show any sort of impartiality when it comes to the NRA.

EdHeath said...

Apparently a Certification of Live Birth is a birth certificate, perhaps what you get when you request a copy to get a passport or whatever. It is apparently the "short form" of a birth certificate from Hawaii. But if that is not good enough for you, by all means entertain your conspiracy theories.

As for your list of conspiracy theories, one, I don't watch Keith Olbermann (or Rachel Maddow, or listen to or watch Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck). I do read the NYTimes online, for what it is worth.

Bush was briefed that “Al Qaeda is determined to attack US” before 9/11. To be fair, unless that briefing said that there is strong evidence Al Qaeda is going to hijack commercial passenger jets and use them to fly into targets, there wasn’t much Bush could have done. He (like all recent Presidents) got those briefings daily, and I suspect he might have thought to himself that maybe some extra money should go into the next budget for the CIA. Which again, to be fair, is all we could really expect.

Bush might have used coke when he was young, he certainly admitted to drinking to excess. We will likely never know, and the only point to knowing would have been as a part of his character. We’re past worrying about that now. By the way, it is a matter of record that Gore smoked pot when he returned from Vietnam. Again, for what it is worth.

Apparently there was a plan or something for a hit squad to assassinate Al Qaeda leaders up close, not though, as far as anyone can tell, the one Seymour Hersh has said something about. I would lump Hersh in with Olbermann, Limbaugh et al as someone I pay little attention to.

Obviously Bush did not directly order abuses at Abu Ghraib, but as Harry Truman said, the buck stops here (well, there, in the Oval Office). But that is why there should be an investigation of the torture practices. To find out who said what, specifically.

And finally, to the NRA thing, as far as I can see FactCheck.org was not lying. Their report was in September, and what they talked about was what candidate Obama was saying on the campaign trail. The links you provide talk about Obama’s record as a Senator. Assuming they got the record right, then fair enough, it is worthwhile to know someone’s record, but that was not what FactCheck was talking about.

You know what gets me is that conservatives/Republicans try to lay all the blame for at least some current problems on Democrats. They like to say Chris Dodd held up banking reform, leading to the subprime/securitized mortgages problems. If instead Conservatives said that Chris Dodd did nothing, like pretty much all the other Senators (Democrat and Republican), to try to address the problem, well, they might find some liberals agreeing with them.

refuse2lose said...

I would like to give a hypothetical situation;You are an employer,a person walks into your office for a job interview.The business you run is a highly secretive business which demands a background check.During this check you can find no records on the person because he/she has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to hide it.Would you hire that person based on one document that proves he/she was born alive?
It seems extremely fishy that the government verified that John McCain was eligible to hold office but they did NOTHING to verify Obama was.