Despite Media Push, Doubts Grow About Obama Status

Despite a blitz by the media to marginalize those who still question the eligibility of Barack Obama to hold the office of President, doubts continue to grow. AOL had as biased an article as could be imagined. Even I could not use any more one-sided language. The article falsely claimed that Obama has produced his actual birth certificate (rather than an image of a COLB that many experts claim has been altered) and attempted to dismiss anyone who still doubted as "Birthers". Despite the ham-fisted tactics, their own poll with a million responses still show that 49% had lingering doubts about Obama's eligibility.

There are two or three issues here. One is the question of whether Obama was really born on United States soil. The other is that because his father was a citizen of the United Kingdom rather than the United States he may not meet the Founders definition of a "Natural Born" (as opposed to naturalized) citizen. The Constitution requires that the President be a Natural Born citizen, but does not define that term. Contemporaries of the Founders defined a natural born citizen as one born on the soil of a country whose parents were both subjects or citizens of that country.

The third issue is related to the fact that Obama was apparently a citizen of Indonesia during his boyhood. At the time, that country did not allow for dual-citizenship. As a young man, Obama traveled to Pakistan at a time when citizens of this country were not allowed to go. Many speculate that he went on an Indonesian passport as a citizen of that country. Obama has sealed all records related to his birth, passports, boyhood in Indonesia, and college records. The latter has led to speculation that he received financial aid on the basis of foreign citizenship.

Meanwhile there are reports of shocking abuses of power in the effort to get the citizenship issue before the supreme court. Attorney Orley Taitz claims that a clerk for the Supreme Court named Bickel took it upon himself to remove the case from the list of files that the supreme court members would see, then falsified the records to make it seem like the case had already been reviewed. The account is here in the filing to reconsider the case on the grounds that it was never heard the first time due to concealment and falsefication of court records.