Obama: Tea party based on eligibility issue

President Obama says the tea party movement is based on those who doubt his eligibility to occupy the Oval Office.

Asked in an interview on the "Today" show about the tea party opposition to his plans in Washington, Obama said, "I think that it is still a loose amalgam of forces. There is a part of the tea party movement that actually did exist before I was elected. We saw some of it leading up to my election.

"There are some folks who just aren't sure I was born in the United States, whether I was a socialist," he said.

"That's segment of it which I think is just dug in ideologically. That strain has existed in American politics for a long time," he said.

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He said around that "core" in the tea party is a circle of people "who are concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may be taking on too much."

He said the "emergency measures" he took over the last year to give taxpayer money to banking institutions and automobile companies "fed that sense that things are out of control."

"These are folks who have legitimate concerns," he said.

Earlier in the interview broadcast today, he said opposition to his plans – such as the recent nationalization of health care – is natural because the party out of power, "their base ends up being very agitated."

"It may take the next election or the next presidential election before things settle down," he warned.

Obama's actual response to those who question his eligibility to be president under the Constitution's requirement that the U.S. president be a "natural born citizen" has been to dispatch both private and tax-funded attorneys to prevent anyone from gaining access to his documentation.

Besides Obama's actual birth documentation, the still-concealed documentation for him includes 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, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

WND has reported on a multitude of cases that have been brought over the issue of Obama's eligibility. Some are by critics who have doubts about whether he was born in Hawaii in 1961 as he has written, and others are from those who question whether the framers of the Constitution specifically excluded dual citizens – Obama's father was a subject of the British crown at Obama's birth – from being eligible for the office.

The issue has prompted a number of state legislatures to work on proposals that would require presidential candidates to submit proof of their eligibility. And a similar proposal has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla.

The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "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."

However, none of the cases filed to date has been successful in reaching the plateau of legal discovery, so that information about Obama's birth could be obtained.

The White House has not replied to numerous requests for comment.

"Where's The Birth Certificate?" billboard helps light up the night at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Las Vegas Strip.

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

The campaign followed a petition that has collected more than 495,000 signatures demanding proof of his eligibility, the availability of yard signs raising the question and the production of permanent, detachable magnetic bumper stickers asking the question.

The "certification of live birth" posted online and widely touted as "Obama's birth certificate" does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same "short-form" document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true "long-form" birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.

Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a "natural born citizen," no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama's claim to a Hawaiian birth.

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