UPDATED BELOW
Well, it seems that even right wing blogger AJ Strata is calling a time-out in the War on Obama’s Birth Certificate (and you’ve really got to feel sorry for the Johnnies who got their guns and perished in that conflict, because I’ve seen the plans for the memorial, and it’s just a marble plinth with a 20 foot tall Notary Public Embossing Seal).
But over at The Corner, Andy McCarthy (I think he was the blond one from Weekend At Bernie’s) is just so flummoxed and bemused by the whole affair that he can’t do a thing but fan himself with forged documents and chirp, “Fiddle dee dee!”
I had not caught up until today with this apparent controversy over whether the Hawaii birth certificate proffered by Obama’s campaign is a forgery and whether there are legitimate questions about whether he was born in the United States — if he wasn’t, he almost certainly would not be qualified under the Constitution and relevant immigration statutes to be president.
Unlike John McCain, who was born in America’s heartland, the Panama Canal Zone. But poor Andy, he’s just all of a dither! He had no idea there was the slightest doubt about Obama’s nativity.
Our Jim Geraghty seemed to pooh-pooh the birth certificate controversy about a week ago, but according to the above cited report (at a site called )
And here Andy helpfully links, not to a website, but to an email address. So I guess we can all write to Doug Ross and get his thoughts on Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and whether he thinks Zac Efron was cuter in High School Musical or Hairspray, and if he prefers troll dolls to unicorns, and maybe even become pen pals!
…and a new one from Israeli Insider
Which is promoting the idea that Obama isn’t qualified to run for the nation’s highest office because his mother was “too young” to give birth to a future president:
Without a valid birth certificate, the primary record of US birth, Obama cannot prove that he fulfills the “natural born citizen” requirement of the Constitution, throwing into doubt his eligibility to run for President and throwing the race into turmoil. His presumed Kenyan-born father was foreign-born, and his mother was too young at the time of birth to confer natural born status by virtue of her American citizenship.
I heard someone touting this notion on the Stephanie Miller radio show the other day, when her producer noted that Snopes has already dealt with it. The law, or regulation, or imaginary friend that Israel Insider is presumably citing refers to people born outside the U.S. When confronted with the fact that Obama was born in Hawaii, other meme salesmen working the same side of the street assert that he’s unqualified for office because Hawaii wasn’t a state when he was born. In fact, as anyone with a fifth grade education is aware, Hawaii was admitted to the union two years before his birth.
But back to Andy:
…there are new developments, and the Obama campaign appears to be stonewalling. Shouldn’t it be a fairly easy matter to prove he was born in Hawaii if he really was? Why wouldn’t Obama just end this quickly?
Yeah, why doesn’t he just, say, get a copy of his BIRTH CERTIFICATE and POST IT? I’m sure that’ll put and end to it.
Is there anything to this?
ADDENDUM: I should add to the above that I am not a conspiracy theorist. My predisposition on the many stories floating around about Obama and his circle is to ignore them on the following theory: If there was really anything to this or that, the Clintons would have found it and gotten their media friends all over it. This story about Obama’s eligibility puzzles me because (a) it is so basic, (b) it should be so easy to prove the relevant facts of his birth, (c) the Obama campaign’s response to the story is bizarre, and (d) it seems to be getting worse rather than resolved.
Yes, that is a puzzler. When right wing bloggers start a rumor that the presumptive Democratic nominee isn’t even a U.S. citizen, you’d think the reasonable thing to do would be to answer them in a straight forward way and provide the easily obtained documention they’re demanding. Instead, for some weird, inexplicable reason, Obama’s people forge his birth certificate, and try to fob it off on some of the most distinguished kerning experts on the planet. It just boggles the mind! I mean, I haven’t been following this whole imbroglio, so perhaps there’s something I’m missing, but you’d think — with the Presidency hanging in the balance — Senator Obama would treat these accusations with the gravity they deserve, and take the simple steps necessary to prove that he was actually born where his birth certificate says he was born. Like jump into a live volcano and emerge unscathed, because the goddess Pele can recognize a homeboy, or select “Tiny Bubbles” as his campaign theme song, or deliver a speech about modern race relations in the authentic Island dance language of Hula.
I mean, this is simple, basic stuff, people! How hard can it be to convince your sworn political enemies that they’re lying about you?
UPDATE: Doghouse Riley arrives during the uncomfortable silence following Andy’s slew of rhetorical questions, and tactfully breaks it by shooting the elephant in the room. In his pajamas, no less:
And McCarthy–a former Assistant US Attorney–wants to get to the bottom of a story which does not just include, but hinges on the idea that one’s parent, even if a natural-born citizen, must also be at least 21 years old if the other parent is a foreign national?
To which Mr. McCarthy has issued an equally prompt and biting response:
“I know that! Why wouldn’t I know that? I’m well aware of that! I just think it’s so funny you’d think I wouldn’t know that.”
“Is it me, or is it him? It’s him, right?”
