Glenn Beck: Eligibility 'not winnable argument'

Glenn Beck

DENVER - Radio and television talk show host Glenn Beck, who previously called the dispute over President Obama's eligibility for office the "dumbest thing I've ever heard," today told Denver host Peter Boyles on his KHOW show that it's not a "winnable argument."

"I haven't looked into it at all," Beck told Boyles on this morning's show. "It doesn't matter to me because I don't think you can make the case."

An audio of the exchange has been embedded:

Listen to Peter Boyles' interview with Glenn Beck:

It was just weeks ago when Beck mocked "birthers," saying the issue actually would benefit President Obama.

At the time, he said, "There's always games being played behind the scenes at a talk radio show.

"Rush has always called them seminar callers. But instead of being coy with the seminar callers or with you, I'm just going to expose the game that is going on. Today there is a concerted effort on all radio stations to get birthers on the air."

Get the must-wear clothing item for 2010! "Where's the birth certificate" T-shirt!

"I have to tell you, are you working for the Barack Obama administration?" Beck scoffed. "I mean, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Beck defined birthers as people who believe Obama was born in Kenya or another foreign country.

Boyles, on his show today, raised the issue of the birth certificate, but Beck said, "I don't have a lot to say."

"Let us just say, if I were the president of the United States, I would want people to bring this up. With so many things that [are] going on in our country, so many verifiable, so many things that are easy to prove, if I were the president, if I were holding my own birth certificate and I'm standing there in the Oval Office, I would have somebody come in and say Mr. President, let's just produce the birth certificate, let's just go out and address this. If I were the president, I would say are you kidding me, no.'"

When Boyles pointed out that it's not just a birth certificate, it's a long list of documents about Obama's past that remains concealed, Beck said, "Yeah, but I don't think it's a winnable argument. I haven't done any … I haven't looked into it at all. … just kind of glanced at it, because there's no way to win that."

Among the documents for Obama not available are his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records and his adoption records.

Beck also suggested Obama is not believable on a number of levels.

"Tell me the things this man says that are true," Beck demanded.

Beck said he was focused on the White House plan to remove citizen rights right now.

While other top radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin and Lou Dobbs, all have said the Obama eligibility issue is legitimate and worthy, a few – including Beck and fellow Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly – have taken the position that the issue is, in O'Reilly's words, "bogus." Both Beck and O'Reilly have cited the contemporaneous appearance of birth announcements in two Honolulu newspapers as prima facie evidence Obama was born in Hawaii and "birthers" are conspiracy nuts.

However, the newspaper birth announcements are not placed by parents phoning their local paper with the good news that they had a child. Rather, as WND has reported based on interviews with the two Hawaii papers, the Obama newspaper birth announcements stemmed from information automatically sent to the papers by Hawaii's Department of Health. The department sends the announcement upon the state's issuance of a "Certification of Live Birth," which, as WND has also reported, is considered insufficient on its own to positively document the president's birthplace.

WND founder and CEO Joseph Farah will be on the Boyles show tomorrow at 10 a.m. EDT to discuss the issue

A child does not even have to be born in
Hawaii to receive a "Certification of Live Birth" – the "short form" that provides no hospital name, delivering physician or any of the other information that traditionally appears on a legitimate birth certificate. And yet the "short form" COLB is the one and only piece of evidence
the White House has cited to defend its assertion Obama was born in
Hawaii.

Hawaiian
law allows "an adult or the legal parents of a minor
child" to apply to the health department and, upon unspecified proof,
be given the birth document.

The only requirement for proof
cited in the law doesn't address the birth of the child either, just
"that the legal parents of such individual while living without
Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of
Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately
preceding the birth or adoption of such child."

Demand the
truth by joining the petition campaign to make President Obama reveal his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate!

Because of the dearth of information, WND founder Joseph Farah has launched a campaign to raise contributions to post billboards asking a simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"