Re-Birther: Obama Once Claimed To Have Been Born In Kenya

This is not a Birther blog. The Free Will Official Stance on Birtherism has long been as follows:

1. Birth certificate or not, if your grandparents lived in the state you say you were born in, and there were birth announcements in the newspapers, and your mother was a US citizen (and born in Kansas, no less), then you are a US citizen as far as I'm concerned.

and:

2. The "natural birth" requirement just might be the most anachronistic provision in the Constitution. American ideals are so widespread that immigrants arriving in the US today have a better grasp of what makes this country great than an alleged American like Van Jones ranting about "the System."

and, most important:

3. The times are too grave, and the imperative to remove Obama from office so salient, that we literally have no time to goof around interpreting birth certificates.

Everyone thought the issue was finally put to rest when Obama released the hallowed "long form" showing that he was born in Hawaii. But, the Breitbart site - also not a Birther hub - has dug up promotional materials for Obama's first book which describe the young man as .... "born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia."

Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama's then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."  

The booklet, which was distributed to "business colleagues" in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel.  

It also promotes Obama's anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White--which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.

Now, this a third party writing the bio, but realistically I think we can all assume that the source for the "born in Kenya" line was Obama. (Plus, Breitbart managed to talk with one of Obama's former agents who said his practice was to have authors review & approve their bios). Does this mean he was born in Kenya? I don't think so. In fact, I will continue to cling bitterly to my close-minded, vast right-wing conspiracy belief that Obama was born in Hawaii and leave it at that. But, what this does mean is that Obama has long shaded the truth about his origins, presenting himself as more exotic or less exotic, depending on what the circumstances warrant. Breitbart gets this, too. 

Obama has been known frequently to fictionalize aspects of his own life. During his 2008 campaign, for instance, Obama claimed that his dying mother had fought with insurance companies over coverage for her cancer treatments.  

That turned out to be untrue, but Obama has repeated the story--which even the Washington Post called "misleading"--in a campaign video for the 2012 election. 

The Acton & Dystel biography could also reflect how Obama was seen by his associates, or transitions in his own identity. He is said, for instance, to have cultivated an "international" identity until well into his adulthood. 

Regardless of the reason for Obama's odd biography, the Acton & Dystel booklet raises new questions as part of ongoing efforts to understand Barack Obama--who, despite four years in office remains a mystery to many Americans, thanks to the mainstream media.

Like the parallel case of Elizabeth Warren, Obama probably got a lot of personal and professional mileage out of his self-professed exotic biography. Obama's was exotic enough without going whole-hog on claiming Kenya as his birthplace, but Obama was canny enough to know that in the academic and cultural circles he aspired to travel, "born in Kenya" would outrank "born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and white-bread American mother." Not a earth-shaking issue, certainly not something to lose the presidency over, but it doesn't say much for his character. (or about the intellects of his supporters, whether 20 years ago or today).

Certifiable: Obama Releases His Birth Certificate

Don't have much to say about Obama releasing his birth certificate. Not only was I never a "birther," I am on record as saying the times were too grave to be sitting around worrying over birth certificates. Still, it's an odd enough story that you can't help reacting:

1. at least now, we won't be hearing (much) from the sort of creepy people who kept the birther rumor going: the right-wing WND types who'll be writing about UFO's and crop circles next week, the left-wing "Clinton War Room" types who first propounded this "theory," and the media jerks who hectored John Boehner over this matter more than they've hectored the president for the manifest failures of his administration.

2. Donald Trump gets results, I guess. But I don't see how Trump is different from all of those celebrities and semi-celebrities who earned cheap applause during the 2000's by ranting about George Bush.

3. Birth certificate or not, if your grandparents lived in the state you say you were born in, and there were birth announcements in the newspapers, and your mother was a US citizen (and born in Kansas, no less), then you are a US citizen as far as I'm concerned.

4. What were birthers trying to accomplish? Did they honestly think Obama would have to step down as president if it turned out he had not been born in the US? If your answer to that question is "yes," you are officially a member of the vast lunatic fringe.

5. Gotta love the theory that Obama was coolly stringing his antagonists along. Actually, he ended up looking like an oddball with something to hide, resulting in poll numbers showing a plurality of Americans weren't sure whether he was born overseas. Smoove.

6. The "natural birth" requirement just might be the most anachronistic provision in the Constitution. American ideals are so widespread that immigrants arriving in the US today have a better grasp of what makes this country great than an alleged American like Van Jones ranting about "the System."

7. Like Obama, I'd like to get back to discussing the serious issues of the day like the out of control debt, rising energy prices, reducing the size of government, reining in the EPA, etc. Looking at that list, I'm guessing Obama would prefer to discuss other "serious" issues like when he's going to be on Oprah! next.

Good Points

A lot of good points being made across the Blogosphere today:

Republicans ecstatic over the anti-Obamacare results in Missouri should temper their enthusiasm, since the status quo was and remains unsustainable. Repeal will not be enough. If Americans want to "keep" their current health care, they need to accept that they will have to actually pay for it. (Cafe Hayek)

Just because someone is a left-wing historian with an axe to grind, doesn't mean their research lacks merit. US involvement in the Korean Peninsula during the Cold War has actually inspired some useful historical writing from progressive types, as the "official" record has been hopelessly white washed. (Marginal Revolution)

The Obama Administration's approach to the "Birther" issue - mockery, combined with deliberate opaqueness that only encourages further "questions" - has had the opposite of its intended effect. The number of people who aren't sure whether Obama was born in the US is at 58%, at least in one poll. (Legal Insurrection)

In the wake of the Crash of '08, the US needs to do more than pass regulatory "reform," or build up balance sheets. Its regulators, finance pros, and ratings agencies need to rebuild their tattered reputations, or see themselves replaced by foreign competitors more willing to make bearish (i.e. rational) calls on US financials. (Ampontan)

American media outlets may be more numerous than ever, but they keep failing to report the same stories; namely that New Age/Leftist ideas and philosophies can be just as destructive and anti-human as anything you could point to on the Right. (The Macho Response)

Liberals like Paul Krugman claim to hate deflation because it creates a "downward spiral" that is hard to get out of. The truth is they hate the benefits of deflation: debt becomes more expensive, savings increase, and private capital formation encourages self-determination. So much easier if liberals could just artificially goose the economy with "stimulus" and zero per cent interest rates, and then inflate away all of the debt that their schemes generate. (Market Ticker)

If you are in New York City and want to talk to beautiful women, you need a Vespa and some blue shoes. At least that's what you need this summer. (The Sartorialist)

There's no scandal quite like a Republican bikini scandal. Apparently, the Left thinks this will kick off some sort of hypocrisy buzz. What they don't realize is that Republican bikini scandals remind people that the hot women are all on the right side of the aisle. (The Other McCain)

"When I Paint My Masterpiece" is one of Dylan's best songs from his post-accident semi-retirement period. It's also one that isn't well understood. (Brendan Bernhard)

While we can all put on an appropriately glum face on the anniversary on Hiroshima, it's worthy of comment that civilian battlefield deaths among our allies, including one battle that took place on American soil, have been forgotten despite their exceeding the toll from the atomic bomb. (The Belmont Club)

Life Is Not Fair. (The Leader of the GOP)

Riot Act

Erick Erickson has taken the trouble to draw a line in the sand and banned Truthers and Birthers from Red State. He can do what he wants, of course; but in doing so, Erickson may have provided the intellectual and political rationale for reading Birthers out of the conservative/Tea Party Movement, so his post, and its follow-up posts are worth your time. Vigilance: I'm Banning Birthers, Truthers, & Groups Affiliated Therewith

The tea party movement is in danger of getting a bad reputation for allowing birfers and truthers to share the stage. At the National Tea Party, Joseph Farah treated the birfer issue as legitimate. In Texas, tea party activists have rallied to Debra Medina who, just yesterday, refused to definitely dismiss the 9/11 truther conspiracy as crackpot nonsense. If a candidate cannot do that, we cannot help that candidate. It’s that simple.

So we arrive at one of those moments where I am fully prepared to part ways with the individuals and groups willing to share the stage and treat as legitimate the crazies who believe the President was born in Kenya, the crazies who believe our government was complicit September 11th terrorist attacks … two groups, incidentally that increasingly overlap.

This sets us up for attacks from the left and from within that we must anticipate. It is one thing to separate ourselves from these individuals and groups. It is quite another to know that these people are among us. We should be careful. All of us have an obligation to vet those who we ally with. Just because someone is stridently against the size of government does not make him an ally if he also believes the U.S. Army blew up the World Trade Center. Such a person brings disrepute on us all, deservedly so.

On the other hand, it may not be known that someone is a birfer or truther. We should be willing to show each other good grace and a measure of understanding in dealing with the troublesome fringe. We should also remember it was the Clintonistas who started the birfer rumor and the most vocal truthers live in Hollywood and voted for Obama. That is not, however, an excuse for us to associate with the nuts.

The media never runs stories about the Communist Party USA’s routine pronouncements in favor of Barack Obama. The media has never run legitimate stories about Barack Obama’s ties to the communist oriented New Party in Chicago. Obama gets a pass even on radicals whose support he personally solicited and those he personally befriended for years. But the moment a birfer opens his mouth and spouts his stupidity from the stage of a tea party rally it becomes headline news on every news network. Complain all you like that that’s not fair, but it’s the world we live in.

There's nothing wrong with speculating about Obama's origins (and the redoubtable Jack cashill has written another intriguing essay speculating as to who Barack Obama's "real father " is); but the idea that such speculation must be part of the rhetoric for a national political movement is nuttier than Oliver Stone on a cashew bender. The goal of Tea Parties, conservatives, and the resurgent GOP is to persuade fence-sitting Americans that we must fundamentally redirect the size, scope, and direction of the federal government. This is not as easy as it sounds, as there are millions of Americans who like the illusory security offered by seemingly limitless entitlement spending, and we really have until November 2010 to make our case. We literally have no time to sit around arguing about Hawaiian birth certificates.

Even if it turns out that Obama was born outside the US, what is that going to change? As Erickson notes, no federal judge is going to overturn a presidential election based on faulty paperwork. As Erickson also points out (as did I a few months ago, although Erickson actually goes to the trouble to cite case law), Obama's mother was indisputably American, which is all that really matters. It's why John McCain is a "natural born American" despite being born in the Panama Canal Zone, and your very own Psota (and his siblings) is qualified to run for president - hey, I'm weighing my options - despite being born in Tokyo.

Erickson is running several gigabytes of angry Birther emails lecturing him pompously on the Constitution. They are like some of my clients who think they don't have to testify in their lawsuits because they can "take the fifth." They understand that there are words on a page somewhere, but don't really know how they apply. The "natural birth" provision is nowhere near as narrowly framed as they would like (no part of the Constitution is); and it is, frankly, trivial compared to the majestic sweep of some of the other provisions. Not only that - as I also pointed out - it is hopeless anachronistic:

I am sure it made sense to The Founders, who feared British aristocrats swanning into the young republic, spreading around some cash, and buying the executive branch. How likely is that to happen now? It's hopelessly anachronistic, and does not reflect the world we live in today. Are we really going to say to a hard working immigrant who came here at age 11 that he can't be president? What about an American citizen who happened to been born in Hong Kong (or wherever) because his mother went into premature labor? Etc.

Rather than being separated by a two-month sea voyage, we are now separated from foreign countries by hours-long airplane flights. American culture and political ideals are sufficiently widespread that people in other countries can be more attuned to what it means to be an American than the typical ACORN activist yelling that we need to destroy The System. An outdated requirement like "natural birth" for presidents has little, if any, relevance. It certainly has little to offer as a means to attack Obama.

The thing you always need to remember in American politics is this: most Americans are earnest, practical and hopelessly middle class. They literally don't want to go to meetings and marches where some loudmouth is yelling about birth certificates. I swear one of the reasons there was never a real anti-war movement in the US during the depths of the Iraq War was due to the bat-s*** craziness of many of the protesters. The earliest SF anti-war protests featured many naive suburban types, but they were joined by the full panoply of the Bay Area lunatic fringe. Some mom from Walnut Creek might "hate" George Bush, but there's no way she's going to walk down Market Street next to a topless lesbian carrying a Hamas flag, at least not more than once. The same dynamic will play out in the Tea Party Movement if Birthers demand and receive an outsize voice.

There really is no time for this sort of nonsense. The times are too grave.

Don't Ask Me No Questions

Jonah Goldberg sets out the difference between Truthers and Birthers, an exercise that is - to paraphrase Samual Johnson - about as useful as determining the precedence of a louse and a flea. A Ring Of Truth(ers)

Scenario A: The supposedly inept president of the United States carefully planned and orchestrated the worst terrorist attack on American soil in our history. Though “only” 3,000 people died, the plan was to kill many more by simultaneously attacking the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and either the U.S. Capitol or the White House itself on Sept. 11, 2001.

Hundreds of people, including personnel from myriad agencies, participated. According to some versions of Scenario A, explosives were placed at the World Trade Center to ensure success. In other versions, all of “the Jews” working there were tipped off by some phone bank run by the Mossad. In every version, however, the U.S. government was in on it, and everyone involved kept the biggest secret in American history.

Then there’s Scenario B: An ambitious and extremely clever politician, who has at best been selectively forthcoming about large chunks of his youth, lied about his place of birth so he could be eligible for the presidency.

To further this scheme, he has arranged for the full and/or original version of his birth certificate to remain under lock and key. At most, a handful of supporters and lawyers are in on the whole thing.

Now, which one is more believable?

The only reason this question has any salience is the repetition in the media that the GOP is riven - absolutely riven, I tells ya - with Birthers, which is supposedly a sign of the GOP's descent into nuttery. The once redoubtable Charles Johnson has taken to labeling any GOP figure who stands next to a Birther to be "Nirther" and declares it the End of the GOP. Meanewhile, Trutherism is common on the Left - witness Van Jones. And certainly, mainstream Dems have seized on every possible scrap of evidence that might establish that Bush "knew" about 9/11. A media double standard disadvantaging the GOP?! Say it ain't so!

I don't think I have ever put across the Free Will Position Paper on the Birth Certificate issue, but here are some First Principals.

1. Obama has been cagey enough about all of this to generate some of the controversy. Don't mean to blame the victim, but he and his supporters have gone out of their way to obscure the issue, rather than release the famed "long form."

2. A significant part of the problem arises as much from Hawaii's half-assed record keeping.

3. It's a wash.

More important, I don't think we can ignore the fact that Obama's mother was an American citizen, born and raised in the Heartland. That's close enough for me, close enough for jazz, and close enough for government work. Obama is an American citizen by any widely understood definition. Birthers are kindly asked to give this a rest.

Also, the provision in the Constitution requiring any president to be a natural born citizen is on many people's short list of Provisions in the Constitution That I Would Remove, If Given A Chance. I am sure it made sense to The Founders, who feared British aristocrats swanning into the young republic, spreading around some cash, and buying the executive branch. How likely is that to happen now? It's hopelessly anachronistic, and does not reflect the world we live in today. Are we really going to say to a hard working immigrant who came here at age 11 that he can't be president? What about an American citizen who happened to been born in Hong Kong (or wherever) because his mother went into premature labor? Etc.

Rather than being separated by a two-month sea voyage, we are now separated from foreign countries by hours-long airplane flights. American culture and political ideals are sufficiently widespread that people in other countries can be more attuned to what it means to be an American than the typical ACORN activist yelling that we need to destroy The System. An outdated requirement like "natural birth" for presidents has little, if any, relevance. It certainly has little to offer as a means to attack Obama.