55 thoughts on “Good Question”

  2. There are already claims that the long form birth certificate is a transparent forgery if you have and know how to use the right software tools. Specifically, that the PDF has layers from digital composition, rather than the expected character of a scanned document.

  3. While it’s not impossible, I can’t believe even this administration is that stupid. Not releasing the birth certificate would be infinitely better than forging one. If they were caught forging it, he’d likely face impeachment and certain ouster from office–either by conviction, forced resignation, or losing the 2012 election (which is more likely than not, anyway).

    I’ve never thought there was much chance he wasn’t born in Hawaii, like he’s said all along, but dragging this thing out seems just dumb to me. If it was to try to make the other side look dumb for having some conspiracy theorists, I don’t think that’s worth the damage done.

  4. I don’t mean to derail the conversation or anything, but the thought just occurred to me. Have we seen Biden and Darth Cheney at the same time since the supposed transition to the Obama administration?

  5. Some scanners and their associated software do “more” with the scanned bits than just shoving them into a bitmap.

    The Fujitsu Scansnap S510M (an out-of-date but -excellent- ADF scanner) will auto-recognize all text and put it into a “text layer” such that searching the hard disk for terms in the scanned document might plausibly turn up.

    The resulting PDF looks and prints like the original, but there’s a text layer. And you can copy/paste stuff out, etc.

  6. On the other hand, those are some mighty odd layers for a scanner to be auto-performing also. Plus it would be dumb: auto-scan/OCRing a file effectively ‘cleans up’ the text, and does tend to look slightly odd.

  7. Well, if the response to releasing the infamous long-form birth certificate is for the Internet Detective International Obama Taskforce to start analyzing jpegs, the real question is “Why’d Obama bother?”

    Guys, the certificate is a certified copy. A certified copy is what you get when you ask the state (or here in Illinois the County Clerk’s office) for a copy of your birth certificate. They go into a back room, take a binder down, put the binder on a flatbed copier and MAKE A COPY. They then CERTIFY the copy, take your fee, and hand you the copy.

  8. Something is very odd here:

    Click on Rand’s link called “layers”. I get a popup from docs.goggle.com/viewer…whatever

    Look at line 13 Full Maiden Name of Mother. Note the position of the “S” in the word “Stanley”. More or less lined up vertically though slightly close to the “t”.

    Now go Drudge and click on “Here it is!” This gives you a whitehouse.gov pdf version.

    Now look at that same line #13, ..look at the S in “Stanley”. It’s not lined up with the rest of the word. It’s slightly raised up.

    Is this an artifact of layering and different pdf readers?

  9. p.s. Same thing with the “R” in Barack, line #1. It’s a trifle low in the google version and a trifle high in the white house version

  10. I have to agree with Chris Gerrib on this one. I’m not sure why exactly Obama bothered at this point. If the idea of not presenting this thing before was to let the other side look like loons, why not keep it up until 2012? If the idea was to actually settle the issue, Obama had to know better. Conspiracy theorists are quite immune to what the rest of us like to call reality. I’m not sure what this does besides give Trump a lively talking point.

  11. OK, so why is the birth certificate in layers?

    Birth certificates are like onions…and ogres. They. have. layers.

  14. Yep, as predicted, as soon as it was released the conspiracy folks are saying its faked. You never win with conspiracy theorists.

    As for why he waited for so long, well the answer is obvious, to make the Tea Partiers demanding it make fools of themselves by obsessing with it 🙂

    Now I want to see Donald Trump’s Birth certification.

  15. Hey Thomas,
    He already released it (Trump).

    I think the WH was getting more pressure from Trump than they wanted, so they decided to finally release it. I’m a little surprised, as I thought this was a great idea by BO too keep folks from talking about real issues.

    This whole nonsense about layers/scanning (they really mean forging) is completely idiotic. Just like when the idiots behind the Loose Change video came out, why would a government conspiracy that was so good at covering up the issue make a bone-headed move and leave the form in layers (just like why would they allow a couple of unknown college pukes ‘uncover’ the whole 9-11 thing). Answer: Anyone capable of pulling off a great cover-up like always ties up loose ends.

  20. Why does Thomas Matula say “Tea Partiers” when he means “birthers”? The two groups are not one and the same. It’s like saying “Tea Partiers are all Republicans” (they aren’t, lots of them are Democrats).

  25. Andrea,

    [[[Why does Thomas Matula say “Tea Partiers” when he means “birthers”? ]]]

    Ahhh, the Tea Party back tracking has already begin – or as Sharon Angle famous tag line goes – “Did I say that? That’s not what I meant to say…

  26. So tell me then, is the Tea Party Nation speaking for the Tea Party, or are they not part of it? Or have you just not gotten today’s Tea Party “talking points memo”? Inquiring minds want to know 🙂

    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/tea-party-nation-hold-your-horses—-weve-got-some-other-questions-about-obamas-eligibility.php

    Tea Party Nation: Hold Your Horses — We’ve Got Some Other Questions About Obama’s ‘Eligibility’
    Jillian Rayfield | April 27, 2011, 12:54PM

    [[[In an interview with TPM, Phillips said that he’s “glad” the President released the birth certificate, but he thinks that’s just one part of the greater issue of his “eligibility.” The new question? Whether President Obama is a natural-born citizen since his father was a British subject in Kenya. Another? Whether the President lost his citizenship when he was supposedly adopted by his Indonesian stepfather.]]]

  28. “Speaking For”, no. Part of, yes.

    There are several ‘national’ groups that claim authority. And far more groups at the state/local level.

    But the “Tea Party” isn’t a traditional party with a freaking organization chart and a clown at the top. Er, they’ve got the clowns – but they don’t have “a top.”

  29. I’m not sure why exactly Obama bothered at this point.

    Because he’s finally starting to realize he’s been in over his head for the last 15 months, and it’s affecting his judgment.

  31. I hate to disappoint you, Thomas Matula, but those questions aren’t new at all and have long been part of the case questioning Obama’s eligibility to serve as president. I heard them mentioned as part of a lawsuit brought in 2008 by a Democrat (who had been a Hillary! supporter). I always thought that either the meaning of “natural-born citizen” or the question of whether he lost citizenship when he was adopted were always more interesting than the birth certificate question. Of course the birth certificate issue always got more attention because it was easier for the press to paint the “birthers” as crazies; it’s not as easy to make the same argument about someone who refers to the natural-born controversy (which also surrounded the candidacy of William Henry Harrison), since most people have only faint recognition of the name William Henry Harrison and aren’t at all familiar with the influence of Emmerich de Vattel on some of the founders’ thoughts about nationality.

  32. Um, Matula, I really don’t think it’s good for your position in an argument to offer TPM as a source of information defining the Tea Party.

    That would be like asking Dan Rather about Bush’s Air National Guard service.

  33. Andrea,

    I see. As long as a group is anti-Obama they are part of the Tea Party. Which of course includes the birthers, so you just showed this is on topic.

  34. Okay, Thomas, let’s put it in terms even you can understand: relying on TPM for info about the TEA Party/Parties is about as valid as depending on Donald Trump for info about Obama. Simple enough for you?

  35. “Andrea,

    I see. As long as a group is anti-Obama they are part of the Tea Party. Which of course includes the birthers, so you just showed this is on topic.”

    Um, I haven’t replied to you since my initial comment. And I swear I’m not communicating telepathically with you either. (I haven’t found a way to make my mind-control rays break through more than one layer of tinfoil; you must be using three or four at least. But soon, soon… MWUAHAHAHA.)

  37. The strain on Thomas is becoming too great, so in the interest of humanity and compassion I have to tell him the double, top secret, ultra truth… I’m the leader of the tea party… you can call me Sparticus.

    But if you reveal this double top secret ultra truth we’ll have to send the goon squad after ya.

  39. Speaking of the topic at hand, I’m sure there’s a perfectly legitimate, reasonable explanation for this. Now if that person is married to someone named “T. Bubbles…”

  40. I’ve always thought the nonsense over Obama’s place of birth was the equivalent of arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Obama’s mother is obviously an American citizen, and that’s good enough for me. Even if Obama was born overseas, only an obsolete law would disqualify him from citizenship. That’s absurd.

    But how odd is it that the birth certificate from 1961 defines the “race” of the mother as “caucasian” and the “race” of the father as “african”? Didn’t the custom of calling black people “african-american” begin much later, in the 1980’s? Wasn’t the common polite terminology in 1961 “negro”?

    It is only this peculiarity of the documents which leads me to suspect them. But why Obama would offer up phony documents, I couldn’t guess.

  41. Natural Born Citizen > Citizen. The former is one of the latter, but not the other way around.

    Why a phony document? Why a document so easily pegged as phony?

  42. Brad,

    His father was from Kenya so why wouldn’t his mother put down African? Why would she use terms that were only associated at the time with African-Americans from the main land?

  43. “His father was from Kenya so why wouldn’t his mother put down African?”

    Because it’s a meaningless statement. African? What the heck would that mean, especially in the context of 1961? There are a tremendous number of ethnicities in the continent of Africa. Using “african” as a racial descriptive would be as precise as using “american” as a racial descriptive.

    African-American as a means of describing black people is a fairly recent conceit. It’s anachronistic to see such a term used in a 1961 document.

    “Why would she use terms that were only associated at the time with African-Americans from the main land?”

    Really? Really? Do you seriously believe that Americans only used the term negro to describe black people who resided in the continental U.S.?

    Now it’s entirely possible that the mother described the race of the father as “african” to the hospital staff. But that would have been wildly eccentric from common language at the time. Granted the mother was wildly eccentric herself, but still it’s bizarre.

  44. I just realized the real secret that nobody has mentioned: Unless Obama was born a month premature, his mother was impregnated when she was a month shy of her 18th birthday. The father was 24 at the time, meaning he’d committed statutory rape.

  46. My first thought is this is still a COLB and not a BC. It is known that in 1961 HI you can get a COLB on the grandparents statement. This comment at infowars agrees…

    Obama’s just trying to trick people by handing over the same NON birth certificate, but a longer NON birth certificate and then stating that he’s finally given in and now people are saying, “why didn’t he hand it over before” or “it’s fake, there’s all these mistakes.” HE STILL HAS NOT HANDED OVER HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE! But, he’s trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes by putting people off track and talking about the “birth certificate” he handed over, which he didn’t. He’s just trying to get people talking about something else so they will forget that he still hasn’t shown the birth certificate in question.
    Also, if Donald Trump is now saying he’s proud of himself for getting Obama to show his birth certificate, then he’s in on it too. He’s just helping Obama cover it up. If Trump is really trying to get Obama to show his BIRTH CERTIFICATE, then he would have stated that this is still NOT a birth certificate. If he doesn’t state that, then he’s just helping Obama cover it up once again. Hey, even cheaper than paying millions to lawyers and other spin-masters to help cover it up.

  47. Brad,

    The 1950’s was the height of the Pan-Africa movement in Africa in which Africans focused on their common heritage as they sought independence from the European powers that still controlled many of them. It was this movement that resulted in the various terms for Black Americans being replaced with African American. Coming from Kenya where he was part of that movement it’s natural his father would use that term instead of one associated with former slaves.

  48. Ken,

    Gee, you would think with all the folks and money behind the conspiracy they could make a better fake (rolling eyes).

    Like said, true conspiracy theorists will never give up their beliefs, just explaining away any evidence as forgeries and/or part of the cover up.

  49. Natural born citizen = citizen by birth.

    Citizen by birth, under the 14th Amendment, means “physically born in the United States, and not the child of somebody with diplomatic immunity.”

  50. “U K L LEE, apparently is a real registrars name (scroll down to kevmo)”

    And “jonty30” (scroll down further on the same page) has a photo of him!

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