Captain Obvious: President Obama is a Citizen, Birthers are Nuts

Captain Obvious is a feature at Greenlee Gazette, where I get up on my soapbox and opine on issues that should be obvious but for some reason aren't.

This edition of Captain Obvious is really obvious. President Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States, and the "Birthers" are bonkers.  The Birthers had their time in the sun, before they were replaced by the tea baggers (though surely, there are Birther tea baggers). But you can still find them--rather quickly--with a Google search, still spewing ridiculous theory after ridiculous theory.

Their initial and most pervasive claim was that Obama had not produced his "long form" birth certificate, and as such had not provided conclusive evidence that he was eligible for the Presidency. Now, why is he being asked to produce a document that (as far as I know) has never been requested from any other President? Why indeed.  And why is a man who has been an Illinois State Senator, and a US Senator, and has travelled all over the world with his US Passport suddenly believed to be a non-citizen when his "short form" Hawaii Birth Certificate was good enough for all of the above?

If the Birthers want a hospital copy of the document, with his little foot prints on it, I just have to wonder, why? I have an old, creased photo-negative of my "original" birth certificate somewhere. But I've long used a computer reproduction for identification purposes. It looks very much like the document that Obama has produced, and it looks nothing like the original.  But the new version is 100% legal as ID.  I suspect that for many Birthers, the long form request is a red herring.  They assume (and who knows, they may be right about this one thing) that there is something revealing or embarrassing on that long form.  Who knows what it is, maybe the parents weren't legally married, maybe they wrote something weird like "atheist" or "Muslim" somewhere on it. But that would all be irrelevant to his citizenship, wouldn't it?

But the Birther movement is very convoluted. The legitimacy of the birth certificate is just part of it. There's no logic involved at all. I mean, there were two birth announcements in the 1961 newspapers, which ought to kill the theories instantly. But they have all sorts of explanations and questions about those too (though none explain why his mother would have gone to such great lengths to make it appear that her son was natural born if he wasn't).  And while some Birthers have loosened up a little, and acknowledge that Obama is probably a citizen, they claim he isn't natural born. Wait, his mom was a citizen, and he was born in Hawaii, so what more do they need?

Well, they have a tortured theory based on Mrs. Obama's age at the time of his birth, and the fact that she lived abroad for a period of time after he was born, for one thing.  And their big one now is to claim that natural born only applies to those whose parents were both born in the United States.  And as we know, Mr. Obama Sr. was born in Kenya.  Ipso facto, not natural born! Sure.  If you forget that Chester Arthur didn't meet that requirement. Nor did many of the earlier Presidents. The first President born after 1776--the first year you could even possibly have been born in this country--was Martin Van Buren, whose parents' births predate the country.  Even Abraham Lincoln barely makes it, with his father being born in 1778, and his mom in 1784.  So, as you can see, their definition--even if true--is a non-starter. You can't pull the plug on Obama's presidency unless you're prepared to invalidate all the others who did not qualify.

Oh, I know there's probably another tortured explanation for that. Maybe "natural born" was grandfathered in until people were old enough to meet the requirement. But I doubt it. And it still doesn't explain President Arthur. And there is ample evidence that if Birthers accept this claim as utterly shot full of holes, they'll find something else. They are desperate to find something, anything, that will "prove" President Obama is illegitimate.  Kinda reminds me of the Bill Clinton "impeachment in search of a crime." I'd be confident that they couldn't pull off such a quixotic quest, were it not for the ridiculousness of that particular successful quest.

Fortunately, the birthers have not gone unchallenged, even if the President--quite rightly--ignores them.  One excellent resource that debunks every single nugget of birtherdom can be found at ObamaConspiracy.org. It is not only comprehensive and informative, it is entertaining too.  Check it out. Obviously.