(Still) Challenging Obama's Birth Certificate

During the campaign season, we witnessed a few fairly ridiculous controversies surface. There was the charge that Senator McCain was ineligible for office, having been born in Panama, which was widely covered by traditional media and blogs. There was the charge that Barack Obama was a murderer, or whatever mad conspiracy Larry Sinclair and his kilt-clad lawyer were on about. That received less media coverage, and what it did receive was largely ridicule. Then there was the charge that McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist, that Barack Obama attended a madrassa, that Sarah Palin claimed to be able to see Russia from her house, and that Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya. Now that the campaign season is over, we can stop hearing all this nonsense.

Or can we?

Some, it seems, haven't quite made up their minds. As Forbes reports, lawsuits still abound regarding the legitimacy of Barack Obama's election. The suits specifically call for the President-elect to produce his birth certificate from the State of Hawaii. The certifcate was released electronically but met with some skepticism, and since that time, the State of Hawaii has issued an official press release stating in no uncertain terms that they have the certificate on file. Although a number of such suits persist, the chief face behind the allegations is clearly Phillip Berg, an attorney and Democrat from Philadelphia. Berg is not only filing in court, he has run advertising in major newspapers and put out youtube videos and a website, all regarding the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate and alleging that he was born in Kenya. As noted at Forbes, Berg is unmoved by debunking of the issue by sites like FactCheck.org and noted myth-busting website Snopes.com.

Berg's argument for pressing this issue is that the United States would face a constitutional crisis if the matter is unresolved by the time Obama is inaugurated. The only thing which will constitute a resolution for Berg is seeing the original birth certificate himself, something which is not permissible under Hawaiian law unless Obama himself requests the original. It does seem rather flawed logic on the part of Mr. Berg. If he is not able to produce any evidence that the President-elect wasn't born in the United States, and if it is legally agreed by all others that, indeed, Obama was born in Hawaii, it is hard to imagine from where that crisis would come.

You may at first glance wonder why the issue is filed under absurd. After all, there's no inherent absurdity in someone being born in Kenya, particularly if that someone is born to a Kenyan father. Certainly major papers like the New York Times didn't consider it absud to question whether Senator McCain was born in the United States. In fact, the closing quote of their article about McCain's eligibility was lawyer Jill Pryor stating that "it is certainly not a frivolous issue." So why does the Obama question end up thus filed?

Well, for starters, as Snopes points out, there is something silly about the idea that a major party, with so much to lose, would stake their entire reputation on a forgery so lame that internet snoops could pick it apart in a day visiting a public website. The McCain question was a matter of law regarding a matter of record, silly though the matter was. The Obama question isn't a matter of law, unless the campaign lied and produced a forgery to cover something up. In other words, the McCain story was actually about eligibility, while the Obama story is about the Democrats and the Obama campaign willfully committing a series of crimes and coverups in an attempt to defraud the entire nation. It's hardly the same thing. Put in terms of the impact, you can have one of two reactions. You can go into panic/attack mode like Berg, thinking that it's such a huge deal someone must do something fast. Or you can think that, well, how dumb would the Democrats have to be to pin their great Presidential hopes on someone who wasn't born here and cover it up with an electronic forgery? It simply doesn't seem like a rational theory, in other words. Furthermore, contrary to Berg's assertions, the so-called smoking gun questions about the electronic version of the certificate are easily explained. Lastly, Hawaii says they have the certificate, which should be case closed.

Of course, it won't be case closed. The challenges persist, and this is not even the only record of Obama's which is being challenged. Some blogs and websites, though as far as I can tell no major media outlets, are also suggesting that Obama's selective service registration was forged.

I would say that this is the last time you'll hear about the issue of the birth certificate, but I suspect it will make news again before the inauguration. There are cases pending, and people out there who intend to make noise. Besides that, it's clear some parts of this campaign will never die. We keep hearing about new "Palin is dumb" rumors every day.

One other note. Phillip Berg is reportedly a Clinton man, and he's out there questioning Obama's eligibity. It's interesting that today we also discover questions about Hillary Clinton's eligibility for Secretary of State. The universe is an amusing place sometimes.