Bad Day for the Birthers

Where's the birth certificate? Oh, right, there it is.

Last week I documented a right-wing phenomenon known as the "Birther" movement. The fringe, nut-job movement enjoyed about a week of mainstream media recognition. Albeit more about spectacle than legitimacy, they did get mainstream support from CNN's resident xenophobe Lou Dobbs, until Dobbs was instructed to drop the story by CNN management.

On Monday, the Birthers were dealt two severe blows to their already futile cause. First, the House of Representatives passed a resolution containing the provision, “Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii.” The resolution passed by a vote of 378-0, with four of the movement's biggest supporters in congress voting with the majority.

Also on Monday, the State of Hawaii certified the birth of Barack Obama in Hawaii, even though they had already this prior to the 2008 presidential election. Evidently beseiged with requests from media outlets and concerned citizens, the State Department of Health again confirmed that Obama "was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."

So the question remains: Will double whammy finally put an end to the Birthers? If I know anything about right-wing nutjobs, I'm inclined to believe they will endure. I think this will probably put an end to the movement's support in congress as well as much of the mainstream media coverage. But the movement's most ardent believers won't be deterred by these latest realities because the Birther movement is not based in reality. The Birthers exist in a right-wing fantasy world, where George W. Bush was our greatest president, Sarah Palin is a rising political star, and Barack Obama is a radical Muslim terrorist from Kenya. As long as people are uncomfortable with Barack Obama being president they will continue support outrageous conspiracy theories in an attempt to somehow invalidate the Obama presidency.

Are you F#!&ING serious, people???

I apologize for the blunt and rather crass title of this post, but enough is fucking enough. Those who inhabit the right side of the political spectrum in this country are seemingly getting crazier by the day. For the first time in 15 years, the United States has a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in Congress hell-bent on actually fixing some of the country's problems, and righty is not happy about it.


The latest lunacy advanced by the right is the notion that Barack Obama is somehow not a legitimate U.S. citizen, and thus ineligible to be President. Right-wing muckraker Jerome Corsi and the conservative website World Net Daily have led the crusade to invalidate the Obama presidency. While both sources of this myth appear to be profit-driven (i.e., Corsi's book The Obama Nation and WND's "Where's the Birth Certificate" line of merchandise), they have nonetheless garnered a huge conservative following.

Now bear with me, because I'm not really clear how their argument works. It is so nonsensical and convoluted that it actually hurts the brain. Basically, it goes something like this: Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, therefore the junior Obama must not be. They also claim that the Obama administration has yet to produce a valid birth certificate. Both of these claims are hysterically false. The citizenship claim is fairly easily debunked by reading the U.S. Constitution. Article 2, Section 1 states that:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment states that:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Assuming Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 - by that time a state - he meets all legal qualifications of both a U.S. citizen and a U.S. President. Evidently much of the confusion stems from the a misinterpretation of U.S. law. Snopes.com points out that the citizenship status of Barack Obama Sr. would only be relevant if Junior were born outside of the United States.

But what about that birth certificate? What if Obama wasn't really born in the United States?

Factcheck.org investigated this myth, obtaining the actual birth certificate and posting photos of it on their website. Birth announcements were also placed in two Honolulu newspapers at the time of Obama's birth in 1961. Factcheck.org offers this tongue-in-cheek explanation to further solidify the insanity of these beliefs:

Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday.

So it would appear that the slightest bit of research and a cursory perusal of the U.S. Constitution would have been sufficient to put this myth to rest long ago. To the contrary, the "Birther" movement, as it is called appears to be gaining momentum, or at the very least has warranted the attention of the mainstream press. The website Birthers.org claims that Obama's birth documents are forgeries and that Obama was likely born in Kenya or Indonesia. They even offer as evidence a prank-call style radio interview where a Kenyan official with limited English fluency is tricked into affirming that Obama's "birthplace" is in Kenya. (You really must hear this. It's the height of despicability).

Currently Reps. John Campbell (R-CA) and Bill Posey (R-FL) are sponsoring a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require presidential candidates to present a birth certificate and other supporting documents to prove he or she meets the requirements for the office of President. Ordinarily, this type of bill might not seem so extreme. I mean, why not certify the eligibility of the presidential candidates? The problem is that the United States is in the midst of her 44th presidency, and never before has a bill like this been deemed necessary. Hmmmm....What is so different about this President? Oh, right, he's a black man with a foreign-sounding name and a father from Kenya. When looked at in these terms, the Birther movement can be seen clearly for what it really is: a disturbing blend of racism and sour grapes. I don't like this President and he's kinda foreign or something....I know! He's not a citizen! And so it begins.

And so there is really only one more thing to say about the "Birther" movement: If you believe that Barack Obama is legally unqualified to be President of the United States, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, then you are in fact an idiot. If you think the Democratic Party would squander the very favorable political environment of 2008 by running an ineligible candidate, you really don't understand presidential politics. Certainly the legitimacy of George W. Bush's wins in 2000 and 2004 is highly suspect among those on the left. The main difference between the two is that the left-wing protests are almost entirely based in FACT (mass disenfranchisement of minority voters in swing states, astronomical irregularities in exit polling vs. reported election results). The claim that President Obama lacks a birth certificate is not only not a fact, but it's not even an opinion. It's just wrong. It would be as if a group of people got organized around the idea that Cleveland is the capitol of Ohio (it's actually Columbus). Like the Obama birth certificate, Columbus being the capitol of Ohio is a FACT and a matter of public record. A "Cleveland Truth" movement would not be any more ridiculous than the Birther movement, yet somehow the Birthers endure. With the economy in the tank, jobs evaporating, a broken health care system and two less-than-successful wars going on, Americans don't have time for manufactured conspiracy.

For a timely metaphor, lets compare this fiasco to the current steroid controversy in Major League Baseball. Imagine that a highly successful player for the Boston Red Sox had passed drug test after drug test year after year beyond any doubt. What would you think of someone who still doubted the legitimacy of said player? Exactly.... Must be a Yankees fan.