The Political Whore

Both my parents are lifelong Republicans who plan to vote for John McCain. Being raised by lifelong Reps, I took their beliefs as my own until I was into my 20s. (This was not a big positive for my social life in college.) I voted for Dole in 1996. (Yes, I can’t believe it either.) I voted for Bush in 2000 — a decision that has inspired nothing but shame since. In the early 2000s, my eyes opened to the world outside of the Conservative bubble and I didn’t like what I saw. Cribbing from Carlin, I now tell people that I was a Republican until I reached the Age of Reason.

Though we don’t “fight” about politics anymore, I still have “discussions” with my folks over the news of the day. This morning, during one such “discussion,” my mother brought up Barack Obama’s questionable citizenship. In fairness to her, she wasn’t insisting that Obama was a commie from Indonesia or other such nonsense. Apparently, there are lawsuits pending over the matter, and she asking me what I knew about it so she could form a more well-rounded opinion on the subject. Truth is, I hadn’t looked into Obama’s citizenship in months as I thought this was settled.

It isn’t.

In the last week or so, conservative radio has picked up the Obama “faked birth certificate” story and run with it. Limbaugh has even gone so far as to suggest that Obama’s trip to see his dying grandmother is really about fixing his birth certificate problem. Michael Savage is spewing similar bile across the airwaves. The story hasn’t gained mainstream traction (primarly because it’s ridiculous), but it’s percolating under the surface.

So, I did some research and wrote the following e-mail. (Yes, I really send e-mail like this to my parents.) I’m posting it here because I assume there are many young people out there who are having similar conversations with your parents or relatives who are McCain voters, and the following information might be useful to you. Enjoy!

Hi Mom,

The lawsuit you are talking about is being brought by Philip Berg. I’ve attached a PDF [you can find it here] with the lawsuit so you can read it for yourself. The answer to he question you keep asking (”But if his mom was an American, isn’t he automatically an American too?”) is that the filing claims he lost his citizen rights when his mother moved to Indonesia and they both became Indonesian citizens. The suit further claims Obama never reestablished his citizenship when he turned 18, so now he’s not a citizen despite being born to American parents. I have no way to evaluate that claim, as I know nothing about the law or if the claims in the suit are actually true. However, when you read the filing you’ll see that many of Berg’s claims are dubious at best. For example: Item 18 uses discrepancies on two Wikipedia pages as a revelation of fact that Obama has claimed to have been born in two different Hawaii hospitals. You ready to stake your case on Wikipedia?

In any event, here’s the link to the Snopes.com page on Obama rumors. I’m sure you’ve heard (and might even believe) many of these falsehoods.

http://snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp

Snopes is an impartial third party that gained prominence in the early ’00s as the “Urban Legend” page. They cataloged and determined the veracity of every claim you ever heard about aligators in the sewers or how drinking coke while eating Pop Rocks will explode your stomach. Over time, they have branched out into other areas, including politics. I have found them to be *mostly* reliable. Everyone makes mistakes, and Snopes is no different. However, I would not send you there if I thought they were partisan or untrustworthy.

More Links:
Here’s the St. Pete Times “Politifact” investigation into the matter: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/
(If you’ve never gone to Politifact, why not? It’s great!)

Here’s Factcheck.org’s report on Obama’s place of birth: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

Here’s the LA Times stating Obama is American born: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/mystery-solved.html

Here’s Media Matters on what conservative radio comedians (Rush, Savage, etc.) have been saying about Obama’s trip to Hawaii to see his ailing grandmother, and how that’s really a smokescreen for him to fix the birth certificate problem: http://mediamatters.org/items/200810230020?f=h_popular
A little unseemly, don’t you think?

Here’s the conservative World Net Daily’s story on Berg: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=76933
(My favorite quote: “Despite assertions by the Washington Post, FactChecker.org and other organizations that Obama has produced a certified Hawaiian birth certificate, Berg told WND he remains ‘99.99 percent sure’ that the certificate is a fake and he wants a court, not a website, to determine its validity.”)

Here’s an example of site pushing the forgery story: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/07/atlas-exclusive.html
(Great quote here: “In questioned document analysis there are several methods for detecting forgeries – the most basic of which is to conduct a side by side evaluation of known good samples to compare against the questioned one and to use an alternate light source to highlight the changes in the color and density of the inks and paper. In the case at hand there are no questioned physical documents to examine so I used the same basic techniques modified for the digital age for use in computer forensic analysis. ” So, this guy is sure it’s a forgery although he’s never actually seen the original. Uh-huh.)

Here’s a Conservative blogger compiling ALL the lawsuits over this currently in the courts: http://www.bloggernews.net/118315
Jeez, this almost looks like an organized campaign, doesn’t it?

Now, after all that, is Obama a U.S. citizen? The answer is: I have no idea, I wasn’t there when he was born. Legally speaking, however, I think we can say case closed, he’s an American. The fact that we’re still talking about this 11 days out from the election should give you some idea of how little the right wing has to offer in this election. After all, if they had some amazing proposals that would really restore America to form, don’t you think they’d dwell on those instead of this bullshit?

Love you,

Joe Bardi
Associate Editor/Operations
Creative Loafing, Inc.
810 N. Howard Avenue
Tampa, FL 33606
PH: 813-739-4852
FAX: 813-739-4801

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