I am posting this in GQ because I feel that this does have some sort of factual answer.
I was just wondering what all these Obama ‘Birthers’ say to the birth announcement that was printed in the Honolulu Advertiser in 1961. To the birth certificates they say “Fraudulent! Forgery!”. :dubious: Whatever. I SUPPOSE the papers could be fake. I mean it’s not technically speaking IMPOSSIBLE. Forgeries exist, etc. But what can they possibly say to an announcement which ran in 1961?
I have never talked to a ‘birther’ face to face (Thank the FSM), nor have I seen any of them asked about it (the birth announcement in the HA from 1961) in the media in interviews, online articles, etc. So I’m wondering- what’s the line, the retort to the birth announcement from 1961 in the Honolulu Advertiser?
The last thing I’m looking for is a debate about Obama’s birthplace, not that that happens much here, I don’t think. So- in short, fill in this blank-
Crazy ‘Birther’: Obama’s born in Kenya!! He can’t be president! I want to see the REAL birth certificate! Those are FAKE!!! I want my country back!! Etc…
which ran in 1961 in the Honolulu Advertiser? Is this fake too? Even if it were, what would be the motivation to fake such a thing in 1961?
Crazy’Birther:____________________________________________________________________________!!! I want my country back!!! Etc…
Here is a link to a video from MSNBC in which David Shuster asks Orly Taitz to explain that. As I understand her, she believes that there were two types of birth certificates, one issued after a birth in a hospital and the second based on the statement of one’s family (presumably in the case of a birth outside a hospital). (So I think she believes that Obama’s family lied to get the Hawaiian birth certificate.)
Yes, in 2014 ACORN will send Rev. Wright back in time to run the announcement. John McCain, as the other major presidential candidate, was also briefed on the emerging time-travel technology. His only hope of gaining the presidency is to go back in time himself and stop Wright. This is why Obama must establish death panels to eliminate everyone over 65.
A Google search reveals some divergence on this point. This guy says the announcements are fake, meaning they were not printed in 1961, they’re just Photoshop jobs or something similar. That site’s worth a look, because the author also says Maya Soetoro-Ng is not Obama’s real (half) sister, and Ann Dunham is not his real mother. That’s pretty far out there.
I think I have heard the theory that believe some of them say that Obama’s maternal grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, either bribed the newspapers to run the announcement, or bribed the relevant State of Hawaii Department to create the birth certificate, which then was handed to newspapers, leading to the birth announcement. She had a job at a bank, so I’m not sure how she is supposed to have become some kind of power broker with connections to the people she would have needed to bribe there.
I believe their official line is that someone in the family called the paper and asked them to put in a birth announcement.
In reality however, birth notices are filed by the health department, not family members.
I don’t follow this very closely, but I think the complaint is that the only evidence produced is the Official Birth Certificate. If these are anything like what we have here in Illinois, that’s an Official Document the production of which is essentially in the hands of a low level clerk. It’s created off of original documents with minimal overview of the process. While it impresses people who are impressed by something that looks “Official” it is, in fact, like many documents, ultimately the production of a very low-level clerical job, and particularly if it’s created somewhere around the time of birth, there isn’t much rigor around vetting the details.
A newspaper announcement would be an even lower level of rigor.
If Mr Obama wanted to show actual birth records (the hospital medical records themselves, or even parts of them) then I think birthers could be dismissed as having unreasonable demands if those passed muster as genuine. The Official Birth Certificate is not something I find particularly persuasive as a physician–certainly not as persuasive as original medical records around the admission and delivery of a baby.
But it seems to me that Mr Obama’s decision to just let the whole thing go might well be the best approach. It’s true that some folks will never be convinced of anything, and in any case the motivation of birthers seems clearly to be mostly an outlet for outrage over someone they detest having been elected.
The Daily Show played a clip of Lou Dobbs commenting something about how easy it was to get a fake newspaper printed with your name in it. Now that’s journalism. Don’t want to believe something? Forget looking it up yourself, just point out how it could be faked.
Speaking of: that Orly gal was on The Daily Show recently and her main point seemed to be that not both of Obama’s parents were US citizens therefore he isn’t one at all (let alone a natural born one). That seems to imply that she now accepts that he was born in the US. I guess Israeli citizens know US law better than the US courts do!
But why would somebody call in a fake birth to a newspaper? With a mom that is a US citizen they wouldn’t need to do that to bolster the case that he’s a citizen; unless they knew he would need birth on US soil to be president, etc.
Also, would a hospital have nearly 50 year-old medical records on births? It seems asking for them runs the risk that the hospital says “hmm, files for the three months including that date were lost in a fire a few years back” or when the moved locations, or whatever, which would just reignite the whole dang thang (as you say: best to ignore it, considering the level of proof that is there already).
Thanks for all your responses. Many yuks. But- seriously- has anyone heard the question of the birth announcement put to a ‘birther’? All joking aside, what is (or are some) of their responses, in reality?
I’m just so curious as to what they could possibly say.
Sorry this took forever to post and in the meantime some people came in with real life examples. Thanks!
Here’s what I don’t get. If Anne Dunham is his Mother, then he’s a natural born citizen, no matter where he was born, right? And if he’s not her child, why did her parents raise him?
Are they seriously suggesting that this family grabbed a Kenyan foundling, brought him to Hawaii, planted fake indications of his birth, and then purposefully raised him up to become the President?
Can it be possible that someone to whom that makes sense is not a danger to him/herself?
Hospital Medical Record departments seldom throw away anything, but of course if they are missing for everyone during a given time block, hey–they’re gone. That would be a pretty easy thing to find out, and I assume someone already knows whether or not his birth hospital still has records from that year.
I believe that citizenship law at the time required a mother to have been a US resident longer than Mr Obama’s mother was, but as I said I have not followed this whole brouhaha very carefully.
I consider the level of his citizenship proof pretty superficial, but the whole issue kind of stupid. None but a small band of folks who seem to really hate him actually care. And as a US citizen born abroad to US citizen parents, I think that should be enough anyway, even if the laws were different at the time for technical length of residency after reaching a child-bearing age (I seem to recall it was 5 years after attaining the age of 14 or something; it was posted in one of these threads).
Not to become president, but to be a US citizen with all the privileges that would entail.
The issue, as with all conspiracy theories, is that they have no evidence to back their claims and are simply arguing that the existing evidence is faked. But for them to be right, they need to produce evidence. For instance, they can come up with scenarios where his grandmother sent fake birth notices to the newspapers, but they have no evidence that she did.
I believe that citizenship law at the time required a mother to have been a US resident longer than Mr Obama’s mother was, but as I said I have not followed this whole brouhaha very carefully.
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What? You think Obama’s mom was not a citizen? I’ve never heard that one. She was born in Kansas and grew up in the US.
Under the law at that time, to pass her citizenship to her son, she was required to be both a citizen and a resident for at least five years following her 19th birthday. She wasn’t quite 19 when he was born. So if he had been born in another country, he apparently would not have been a U.S. citizen at birth and might be ineligible. It’s irrelevant because he was born in Hawaii, but you’re talking about a group of people who think he was born in Kenya. (Among other things.)
