Obama releases long form birth cert.Follow

It was all handled by the processes in place for vetting presidential candidates back in '08. Your analogy would make more sense if he was ID'd at the front door to a club, got a stamp on his hand, then asked for ID again by the bartender even though he was already checked. Unnecessary.

If only fringe crazies would draw it this far, wouldn't it make sense that he "pretended" that he didn't understand?

Sorry if I misread that somehow. Part of me wants to point out the stats that 1/4 Americans aren't mostly sure he was born in the good ol' US of A (and, what was it, 40% of Republicans and the majority of the Tea Party?). But that would disrupt my mocking of you for attributing this behavior to "fringe crazies."

Fact is, what Obama showed was what Hawaii gives. As per the correspondence (also shown in all these topics), Obama needed to have his position as President used to get the full version - because the short version is what Hawaii gives. If that + testimony from officials + no evidence to the contrary doesn't convince you, you are part of the fringe crazies.

Edited, Apr 27th 2011 5:55pm by LockeColeMA

And there are those of us who live in the US, but come from more civilised places that wonder why we still get carded in bars at the age of 35. The neccesity to constantly validate one's identity with a piece of paper is very trying. Especially, I'd imagine, when one is trying to run 'the world's only superpower'.

And you who went out of your way time and time and time again to defend them and say "Oh, I don't agree but they really have a point!"

:D


Yeah, the Birthers TOTALLY got what they wanted. So much so that now they howl and scream "NO NO NO!!! THIS IS FAKE AND WRONG AND HE'S LYING AND HIS SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER IS WRONG AND HIS SCHOOL RECORDS WHAT ABOUT HIS SCHOOL RECORDS?!!!!?????!?!?!?!"

As I said at the time, it's adorable that you thought this would appease people who are mentally ill. But you'll keep defending them (even though you're not really a Birther, right?), I know.

Edited, Apr 27th 2011 5:29pm by Jophiel

There is no process in place though. That's the point. It simply doesn't exist. There is no process for verifying someone's status as a natural born citizen prior to being put on the ballot in the state (if there was, then why the uproar about the recently proposed AZ bill?). There is no process in place to verify that the person who won the election meets that criteria. There is no process in place to verify that the person the Electoral College votes on meets the criteria. There is no process to verify that person prior to him taking the oath of office. And there is apparently no legal process for doing so even once the person has taken office either.

You're imagining things if you think this. It's just plain not true. And that's the real issue here.




Except that no one actually checked IDs at the door. Someone just said "he's ok", and waved him through. You do realize that the only remotely "official" process involved was when the Democratic party filed to have his name included on ballots as their nominated representative, right? That's it. Do you think that the Democrats, having just nominated him would at that point stop and check his ID? Or do you think they'd just wave him through and hope nothing comes of it? More to the point, that's not independent verification. There's a guy in AZ who runs for president every year. He's a member of some fringe party (can't remember which one). He's also not only not a natural born citizen, but he's not even a US citizen at all. Yet his name appears on the ballot because he's the chosen nominee of a political party who paid the dues to be able to put a name on that ballot in that state.


That's obviously not a process for actual verification. There is nothing preventing his party from paying to put his name on the ballot in every state. And if he won? What then? My concern has never been about Obama. In fact, I've stated numerous times that I hope to god that there is nothing strange with his birth certificate because that would be more problematic than the alternative (and bob-forbid we'd end out with President Biden if even the worst claims ended out being true and no one actually wants that). You do understand that while there are some loonies for whom this is just about some brainless need to attack Obama, "the right" doesn't gain anything politically even if every single claim they're making is correct. It has never been about that. It's been about how this whole thing has shown how utterly unprepared we are for managing even a question about someone's qualification as a natural born citizen.

No, he showed his military identification card instead of his driver's license to get into the bar.

Presidents have a right to do things for the lulz.

No. I said I don't agree with them, but we really should have a process for making the determination instead of just sweeping it under the rug because we don't agree with them. There's a world of difference between those.





Who cares if there's an incredibly tiny number of people out there who'll continue to cling to some reason to attack Obama? We can safely ignore them, and the GOP can move on (which is the more relevant issue here). You act like there aren't just as many nutjobs on the left Joph. Yet you don't see me quoting crazy left-wingers on Daily KOS and arguing that they are typical examples of what people on the left think.



Not at all. I meant that it would appease the vast majority of people (like myself) who get labeled as "birthers" by people like you because we didn't automatically dismiss the issue out of hand and attack anyone who wanted to see the long form as crazies. You have used (in this thread in fact) the label of birther on people who are now completely satisfied that the matter is behind us with regard to Obama's birth (although I'd still like to see an actual official process put in place instead of relying on the individual to do the right thing).

You're conveniently after the fact choosing to apply that label only to those who are still convinced that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii (or that his qualifications are invalid for some other bizarre reason). You've never used it that way in the past though, have you?

No. The best analogy is that a friend vouched for him to the doorman, who they paid to get them in. I'll restated my point that the only actual "official" method for meeting the qualification is to have the party sign a form attesting that their candidate meets the requirements for the office when they're filing to be included on the ballot in a state. That's it. That's the only method we use right now.


If we get nothing out of this, it's that said method is not sufficient.

No, I was right. Unless you're saying both the Republicans and Democrats were inept and didn't do security checks, at which point I would laugh my balls off.

At the risk of speculating too hard, I suspect it had to do with questions about whether the same "He already proved this, so stop asking" bit might not work so well a second time around. His popularity is lower than it was in 2008, and the momentum politically has definitely shifted. While I doubt the GOP candidates would have made too much of an issue with it, they wouldn't have to. Just show up at any event with a copy of their full birth certificate in their pockets and flash it to the crowd anytime someone asks. They don't have to argue that Obama isn't a citizen, but just show how easy it is to do and let the public wonder why Obama hasn't yet.


That's probably what was going on. They got the political mileage they were going to get out of this, and I suspect that they saw polling numbers that told them that public opinion was shifting from "he doesn't have to show this so why are you bothering him" to "geez already, just show them the damn thing and move on". I mean, I've got two sealed copies of my full form sitting in my desk drawer 2 feet away from where I'm writing this. I suspect that most people have one handy or could get one quickly if they needed to. I suspect that they weren't so much obsessing on the "do you think Obama is a US citizen" polling questions, but the "do you think Obama should show his full birth certificate" numbers and seeing that the issue wasn't helping them as much as the folks on this forum might think.

Only the party who's putting their nominee on the ballot vouches for them. What vested interest would they have in checking his ID *after* they've nominated him? Think about it. Also recall that the earliest questions about his birth weren't from the GOP but were from the Clinton campaign. They were the first "birthers", a fact which many people tend to forget. Once he won the nomination they'd look pretty darn stupid if it turned out he wasn't qualified, so it doesn't matter what they thought or believed, they'd have every vested interest in making sure no one investigated the issue at all. It's very much like the doorman who let a friend of a friend in, trusting that he was of age, but not having actually checked to make sure, who will now have to swear up and down to the bartender that he knows "for sure" that the guy he let is in old enough to drink and that there's no need to check his ID.


Do you think the DNC actually checked his full form birth certificate either?

Edited, Apr 27th 2011 5:59pm by gbaji