Should a man be permitted to serve as president after offering as proof of eligibility a birth certificate that is clearly invalid?
There are many reasons to suspect the “birth certificate” released by Barack Obama last month is fraudulent, a forgery, a fake. But let’s put aside, for the moment, the dozens of peculiarities and anomalies and inexplicable inconsistencies with that document.
Let’s assume for a minute there has been no tampering, no manipulation and it is an accurate record of a birth that took place in Honolulu Aug. 4, 1961.
There is still a huge problem with it if we are also to accept at face value the Obama family narrative, repeated recently by his half-sister, Maya, that he was adopted at age 5 by his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro.
Clearly, that wasn’t done in the case of Barack Obama – which means the document is not an accurate record of the historical reality of Obama’s legal parentage.
Some people might argue whether an adoption makes any difference in the case of Obama. Some might say the actions of his parents should have no impact on his eligibility for president. Some might suggest this is a mere “technicality.”
The problem with those rationalizations is that law is a matter of technicality. And, when it comes to something as important as meeting the constitutional requirements of the office of the presidency, technicalities should be extra important.
Would Obama’s eligibility for office be taken seriously if his birth certificate had been amended, as it should have been, to reflect the apparent fact that his father was an Indonesian citizen, who moved his son to Indonesia where he was registered for school as an Indonesian citizen?
I don’t think so. At least I hope our definition of “natural born citizen” hasn’t degenerated to that level yet.
So, in effect, America is basing its assumption of Obama’s eligibility on a record, his birth certificate, that is inarguably not accurate – even if it is not a forgery, not a fraud, not a fake, which I believe it is.
I just don’t want to see America’s Constitution dumbed down like this. If we allow it, forevermore anyone who can produce a document claiming he or she was born in the USA will be eligible to serve in the White House.
That is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. That is not what the Constitution means when it disqualifies all but the “natural born citizen” for this unique office. That is not how we should diminish our expectations for the future.
And, again, this is just one of dozens of problems with the eligibility of Barack Obama.
Whether it was his intent or not, Barack Obama has done much to obliterate the meaning of the phrase “natural born citizen.” Historically, it has little to do with the location of the birthplace. It has much more to do with parentage. It has to do with the appearance of divided loyalties. Clearly, with two foreign fathers and a young mother who left the country to take up residence in Indonesia, we have more than the appearance of divided loyalties. Obama may have lived most of his life in America, but his entire political reputation is based on being more “worldly.”
But no one in the media, no one in government and no one in politics wants to touch this subject. It’s just too sensitive. They would prefer to amend the Constitution by fiat, by default.
As for me and my house, we prefer the rule of law to the rule of men.
