Paul Broun is Still a Birther

My buddy Jason Pye conducted an interview of Rep. Paul Broun last night. Addressed briefly, starting around the seventeen minute mark, were Broun's recent comments regarding President Obama's citizenship:

DOMINICK: You think he’s an American citizen and a Christian?
BROUN: I’m not gonna get involved in that.
DOMINICK: You can’t say that he’s an American citizen?
BROUN: Well —
DOMINICK: You can’t say the president’s an American citizen?
BROUN: I don’t know.

Jason provided Broun with a chance to clear the air on this, asking him straightforwardly, "Do you believe the President's citizenship is in question?" Broun's response to that yes/no question was an unfocused three-minute-long ramble that discussed everything from health care to Argentina. Broun claimed that he is not questioning Obama's citizenship ("because I've not gotten engaged in all that"), but wraps up by saying:

"That's what I said when I was asked: I don't know, nobody knows for sure, we've not seen any documentation one way or the other."

Like Nathan Deal, Broun has resorted to weasel code. "We've not seen any documentation?" Horse-apples.

We've seen his birth certificate. We've seen his newspaper birth announcements. We've seen the director of Hawaii's vital records department formally declare that he was born in Hawaii.

Thus, Broun's claim that "we've not seen any documentation" can mean only one of two things. One possibility is that he is ignorant of all of this evidence. I find this doubtful, considering that in the same interview, Broun acknowledges his familiarity with the questions that others have been asking. In any case, he's only promoting an image of ignorance if he's claiming to be unaware of the birth certificate that has been available online for almost two years.

The other possibility is that Broun is aware of the existence of this evidence, but for some reason, does not consider it to be decisive "one way or the other." Is Broun expressing doubt as to the authenticity or reliability of the available evidence? Does he subscribe to the conspiracist view that Obama's family and/or the state of Hawaii have been engaged in a conspiracy to cover up a non-Hawaiian birth? Is he suggesting that the evidence should be doubted in the face of baseless online rumor? What does Broun mean by this obvious falsehood?

Birther Mythbusting: Barack Obama was not born "White"

Conspiracism does not hold up consistency as a virtue. Every Birther is very familiar with the infamous Nordyke twins' birth certificates, issued in 1961 for girls born at Kapiolani Hospital within hours of Obama himself.

Birthers are also quite fond of arguing that Obama's hospital birth certificate might identify the newborn Obama's race as "white." To wit, "I read that Obama will not release his birth certificate. Have heard rumors it's because he is listed as white."

This is a patently foolish theory for at least two reasons. First, we've seen baby photos of Barack Obama, and it's hard to imagine anyone in 1961 looking at such a baby and declaring him "white."

Second, just look at the Nordyke certificate itself:



There are only two boxes for "Race" on the entire certificate, both of which I've marked above. One for the father's race, the other is for the mother's race. Both of these categories are repeated on the COLB. There is no box for the race of the newborn child.

Again, let me repeat that: a 1961 long-form Hawaiian birth certificate does not have any box for "Race of Child." Obama's long-form birth certificate does not say he was born "white" because it CAN'T say his race. There's no spot for it. It's a simple and outright impossibility. Simply looking at the Nordyke certificate should instantly tell you that the theory has no factual grounds to even start building on. You might as well speculate that his birth certificate claims that he was born "Communist" or "Handsome."

This should hardly be a surprise either, since modern American birth certificates almost never have a box for the race of the newborn. That's a judgment call that hospital staff have no business making.

So why does this canard continue to be repeated, seven months after the Nordyke certificates should have put this to rest forever? Because Birthers don't pay attention to evidence, and don't allow contrary evidence to affect their postitions.

Fighting the Urge

- xkcd

Birther Mythbusting: Maya Soetoro and The Rainbow Edition Newsletter

Patrick McKinnion has been doing a good series on Birther Mythbusting, and there's one myth that's irritated me enough that I want to take it down. I speak of the fabled Maya Soetoro interview in the Rainbow Edition. I'll let Jerome Corsi summarize it briefly for me:

"In a November 2004 interview with the Rainbow Newsletter, Maya told reporters her half-brother Sen. Barack Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu."

This myth originated, as with so many of Birtherism's core beliefs, with Phil Berg. In his Response to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss in September 2008, Berg wrote:

Furthermore, the Rainbow Edition News Letter, November 2004 Edition, published by the Education Laboratory School, attached as EXHIBIT “1”, did a several page article of an interview with Obama and his half-sister, Maya. The Rainbow Edition News Letter reports Obama was born August 4, 1961 at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Note that Berg does not explicitly state that Maya was quoted as saying Queens, though he would appear to want the reader to draw that conclusion. Also, Berg erroneously claims that the article included an interview with Obama, and to be nitpicky, even the most generous definition of "several" does not encompass the actual two-page length of the article.

Berg, however, does get right what Corsi and many others have subsequently gotten wrong: the Rainbow Edition Newsletter is nothing more than a high school newspaper. The article in question was written not by a reporter, and not by a colleague of Maya Soetoro, but by a high school junior.

Additionally, what is immediately obvious upon actually viewing the article is that the "Queens Medical Center" reference is not a quote from Maya at all. It's simply referenced in the introductory paragraph. In fact, it's such a mundane fact that it's hard to imagine even an amateur journalist wasting time asking for it during an interview. Still, the fact that the reference is not credited to Maya, and the fact that the article is full of mundane facts that it would be foolhardy to attribute to Maya, this has not stopped some Birthers, like BP2 (or as I'll call him, Beeps), from insisting that the source must have been Maya Soetoro.

Sadly for Beeps and others, the source was not Maya, but rather Wikipedia. The Rainbow Edition author actually cribbed a considerable portion of his article straight from Wikipedia, as I'll now illustrate:

From the Rainbow Edition:

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961 at the Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Obama lived here with his parents Barack Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham until they divorced when he was two. Obama moved back to Hawaii when he was ten and lived with his grandmother Madelyn Dunham and half-sister of our very own, Maya Soetoro.

From Wikipedia:

Barack Obama was born at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. His parents were economist Barack Obama, Sr., of Kenya and S. Ann Dunham,...When Obama was two years old, the couple divorced...When Obama was ten, he returned to Hawaii under the care of his grandmother Madelyn Dunham.

In addition to the textual similarity, notice what's missing from the Rainbow Edition account above. It describes when Obama "moved back to Hawaii," but gives no prior indication that he'd ever left. That's because the Rainbow Edition omitted the Wikipedia information (between the ellipses above) about his childhood move to Jakarta.

Further down the article, from the Rainbow Edition:

His Republican opponent, Jack Ryan was forced to dropout of the race after Republican leaders questioned his integrity.

Mike Ditka, former NFL Coach, was going to be the new Republican candidate but he decided not to join because of family and business reasons. Alan Keyes, from Maryland, was nominated by Illinois Republican Chairwoman, Judy Baar Topinka. It looked like Obama was guaranteed a win because of his growing popularity around the state of Chicago. In the end, Obama won almost seventy percent of the vote.

From Wikipedia:

...leading Republican leaders to question Ryan's integrity. Ryan was forced to leave the race...

Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka had considered running as a Republican to replace Ryan, but opted not to because of family and business considerations. On August 3, Illinois Republican Chairwoman Judy Baar Topinka announced two possible replacements: Alan Keyes and former presidential advisor Andrea Barthwell. After much deliberation, Keyes, at the time living in Maryland, was nominated...Obama received nearly 70% of the popular vote.

Again, from the Rainbow Edition:

Obama first became involved with politics when he was voted onto the Illinois State Senate in 1996. During his time, he helped to provide the poor with benefits andpassed bills for increased funding for AIDS programs. In 2000, he ran in the Democratic primary for Illiois’ 1st Congressinoal district but he lost to the incumbent Repersentative Bobby Rush.

From Wikipedia:

In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate...during his tenure in the legislature, he helped to author a state earned income tax credit providing benefits to the poor...he successfully passed bills to increase funding for AIDS prevention and care programs. In 2000, he ran in the Democratic primary for Illinois' 1st Congressional district against incumbent Representative Bobby Rush, but was badly defeated.

Finally, from the Rainbow Edition:

This past year, he became the third African-American to give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. After winning his race, Obama became only the fifth African-American Senator in our nation’s history. Right now, Obama is also a law professor at the University of Chicago.

The reference to his professorship is an odd non-sequitur to close out this unrelated paragraph. But, from Wikipedia:

A University of Chicago law professor, Obama in November, 2004, won an open seat in the U.S. Senate against Republican candidate Alan Keyes, becoming the only serving black U.S. senator in 2004 and just the fifth in the country's history...Obama was chosen to deliver a keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, and became the third African American to do so.

Berg and Beeps have argued that the high school student also interviewed Obama himself, and "Queen's" came from him. But in addition to the above, there is no evidence in the article that Obama was interviewed at all. One of the two Obama quotes included in the Rainbow Edition ("The irony is that my decision to work in politics...") is taken straight from the Wikipedia page. The only other Obama quote came from this January 2004 video interview. In our discussion some months back, Beeps initially argued that the high school kid must have personally interviewed Obama to obtain this quote, and then when I confronted him with this video transcript, he resorted to allegations of historical revisionism, and then abruptly changed the subject. Typical Birther behavior, in other words.

Beeps also argued that "They properly checked the spelling, grammar, punctuation, style – ONLY to get that birth place wrong." Which is, again, grossly inaccurate. There are, in fact, multiple spelling, grammatical, punctuation, and style errors throughout the Rainbow Edition article. In the category of spelling errors alone, the author wrote "Illiois," "Congressinoal," "Repersentative," "whoe," "chilhood," "competetive" and "accoplishments."

And who, you may ask, was Wikipedia's ultimate source for "Queen's Medical Center," since no source citation was given in the Wiki entry? It was simply a Hawaiian college kid who liked editing Wikipedia, and took a guess as to which hospital Obama was born in. He explained his reasoning to me, saying it "was based on presumption without original source. Conjecture based on Queen's being the largest hospital in Hawaii, near the University of Hawaii at Manoa where the Obamas went to school, presumed that they were still in school and probably lived near campus. Queen's is in a central location and a place of power, a block away from the Hawaii State Capitol, Iolani Palace and the governor's residence at Washington Place. As it turns out, the Obamas lived in an apartment just across the street from the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children, a location even closer to the university campus." And he concluded, "Put in simple terms: I was the source and the source was wrong."

So there you have it. Maya Soetoro never told the Rainbow Edition or any other publication that her brother was born at Queen's Medical Center.

Thank You, Nathan Deal

Let me be the first to thank Rep. Nathan Deal for bringing an issue of vital importance to the attention of Georgia voters.

During an online chat in November, Rep. Deal wrote “I am joining several of my colleagues in the House in writing a letter to the President asking that he release a copy of his birth certificate.”

The other week Deal’s office confirmed that this letter was sent, though it bore only Deal’s signature. Thus far Deal has declined to release the letter or discuss its contents, but I still choose to believe that the letter exists, despite not having seen it for myself.

Of course, Deal’s concerns about the President are nonsense. President Obama’s birth is already more well-documented than any U.S. President in history; the public has his certification of birth in Hawaii, confirmation of that birth by Hawaiian vital records officials, and birth announcements in two Honolulu newspapers. More Americans could probably name the hospital that birthed the current President than could name the state that gave us the last one (Connecticut).

But Nathan Deal nonetheless exposes another politician whose eligibility is hardly as settled as President Obama’s. And that person is Nathan Deal.

Deal is currently running for Georgia Governor. Per the Georgia Constitution, the Governor must have been a U.S. citizen for at least 15 years.

I have never seen any proof that Nathan Deal is a U.S. citizen. Unlike President Obama, he has never released any records of his birth. The documentation that is publicly available leaves many things to be desired. Extensive online research turns up only an alleged birthdate and birthplace of Millen, Georgia. Who were his parents? What was the hospital? Who was the delivering doctor? These are questions that need answers.

You see, there are unsourced internet rumors that Nathan Deal was not born in Georgia at all. That instead, his mother gave birth to him while his parents were in Canada, dodging the WWII draft. They then returned to Georgia and registered his birth here. Moreover, there is further rumor that Nathan is actually the son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. I’m not saying these rumors are true, but when can we expect Deal to produce the documents that would put them to rest? What is he hiding?

And unfortunately, a birth certificate alone cannot settle this matter, even after it’s been forensically examined. Deal has been a U.S. Congressman since 1993, and was previously a Georgia State Senator beginning in 1981. Both offices have citizenship requirements, yet in his nearly three decades in elected office, Nathan Deal has never publicly produced a shred of evidence to support his presumed U.S. birth and citizenship. Three decades of evasion. Even his Congressional website says nothing about his birth, opting instead for the conveniently ambiguous statement that he “was raised in Sandersville, Georgia.” His gubernatorial campaign website avoids the subject of his youth entirely.

And are you aware his first name is not actually “Nathan”? It’s John. John Nathan Deal. Did he ever legally change his name? Could his surname still be Rosenberg? We simply don’t know.

All of this means that Georgians deserve firm proof of Deal’s eligibility for the office he now seeks. He should produce witnesses to his birth, and evidence of his parentage. He should release his records from law school, college, high school, and kindergarten. Plus his parents’ marriage license, military records, Bar records, and baptism records.

Before he objects, these rumors merely mirror those that Deal’s fellow eligibility skeptics, his fellow ‘Birthers,’ have levied against Obama as grounds for their skepticism, and records that they have demanded the President produce. So if Deal empathizes with their conspiracist campaign, surely he cannot consider it unreasonable to be held to a similar standard. And I, for one, eagerly await him to live up to it.

Nathan Deal: Birther for Governor

Jason Pye provides a thorough look at the birther-related comments that were made at and by Nathan Deal at Tuesday's gubernatorial debate.

My thoughts on Deal's actual comments?

None of them get asked the questions that I get asked by constituents, "tell me what the status of the president's birth certificate is."

You're a U.S. Congressman. I'm sure you get asked a lot of stupid things. Everything from people who claim that Bush coordinated 9/11 to people who believe Obama is a reptilian.

So do you take all ridiculous constituent questions seriously, or just some of them?

I have simply asked the president, "tell me where I can refer these constituent inquiries to, to a source that you think is credible so that we can answer their questions."

You may not be familiar with it, Rep. Deal, but there's this wonderful modern invention called "The Internet." You refer them to his website. Or to FactCheck. Or to PolitiFact.

I think that is a reasonable proposition and certainly something that I think the president should respond to.

He did respond to it. Nineteen months ago.

Although at this point, he has not.

And when, Rep. Deal, do you plan on responding to rumors that your parents were actually Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? I think that's something that you should respond to, but at this point, you have not.

The Tribe/Olson Memo on Natural Born Citizenship

In early 2008, the John McCain campaign commissioned a report by Laurence Tribe and Theodore Olson on the subject of the Constitution's definition of "natural born citizen," and specifically how it applied to John McCain.

Laurence Tribe is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, and is considered one of the foremost scholars on constitutional law in the country. Theodore Olson served as Assistant Attorney General during the Reagan Administration, and was Solicitor General under George W. Bush. Both men have argued before the Supreme Court multiple times, and they were founding members of, respectively, the American Constitution Society and the Federalist Society. Simply put, these two men are among the most accomplished and respected legal minds in the U.S. Additionally, Tribe is politically liberal whereas Olson is politically conservative.

On March 19, 2008, the two men issued their report. The portion most relevant to the Birthers' claims has been excerpted previously:

"The Constitution does not define the meaning of “natural born Citizen.” The U.S. Supreme Court gives meaning to terms that are not expressly defined in the Constitution by looking to the context in which those terms are used; to statutes enacted by the First Congress...and to the common law at the time of the Founding.... These sources all confirm that the phrase “natural born” includes both birth abroad to parents who were citizens, and birth within a nation’s territory and allegiance....

"If the Panama Canal Zone was sovereign U.S. territory at the time of Senator McCain’s birth, then that fact alone would make him a “natural born” citizen under the well-established principle that “natural born” citizenship includes birth within the territory and allegiance of the United States...Premising “natural born” citizenship on the character of the territory in which one is born is rooted in the common-law understanding that persons born within the British kingdom and under loyalty to the British Crown–including most of the Framers themselves, who were born in the American colonies–were deemed natural born subjects."

Given the stature of Messrs Tribe and Olson, this should, by any measure, be a nail in the coffin of the 'two-citizen-parent' theory of Presidential eligibility. However, it appears that the memo in its entirety is rather hard to come by online. So I present it here, for your reading pleasure:

The Tribe/Olson 'Natural Born Citizen' Memo