27 April 2011

Silliness?

President Barack Obama has now released the long form of his Hawaiian birth certificate, in the hopes of putting an end to the debate as to where he was born.

In his remarks to the nation, the President said, "We do not have time for this kind of silliness."

One might well wonder - if that statement is true - why he waited so long to release the document.

I'm reminded of one of Obi Wan Kenobi's great lines: "Who's the more foolish: the fool, or the one who follows him?"

One might ask, Who's the more silly: the one asking silly questions or the one who lets it go on so long?

Now, before I am attacked for speaking against the President, my comments above are well reflective of any situations.  My logical mind would have me ask the same question of anyone who would make a similar statement.

10 comments:

  1. Apparently Hawaiian bureaucracy is silly. They do not release long form birth certificates, and doing this required strings to be pulled.

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  2. Could the President himself not have acquired and released a copy of the long form?

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  3. And, having dealt some with Hawaiian bureaucracy, I won't disagree that it is silly.

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  4. Apparently the policy is that if you request a birth certificate, you get the short "certificate of live birth" released in 2008. The state Department of Health guards the original "long form" jealously, apparently just to make sure they always have it on file. In order to get the original, you must demonstrate a compelling interest in having to access the original document to request a waiver. That is what was done over the past week.

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  5. Still, it doesn't answer the question as to why he waited so long to avoid all this [additional] silliness.

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  6. I'll actually add that, in fairness, I was assuming a president could get it if he really wanted to, and wasn't bothering because conspiracies theories made the GOP base look ridiculous to others. Since that apparently isn't true, another angle presents itself: Elite politicians are routinely the subject of conspiracy theories, with the allegation that Sarah Palin isn't really Trig's mother being an immediate example. They can't bother to answer all of them, nor can they, really, as the statement by orly Taitz that the certificate is allegedly forged now demonstrateS.

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  7. Bearing false witness is a sin. Those people who claimed they "knew" that Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii were bearing false witness -- they "knew" no such thing. The burden is not on the individual who is telling the truth (in this case, President Obama) to present that truth in five or eight or twelve different ways in order to prove that liars are lying.

    The president was and is telling the truth; here is the long-form evidence for those who would love to discredit this president as being "unAmerican" and/or otherwise constitutionally qualified to serve as president. However, Obama posted adequate evidence in 2008 that he was indeed a "natural-born citizen"--the short-form birth certificate, which can still be found online and which FactCheck.org (a nonpartisan watchdog group) examined and handled back in 2008. Still, that was not enough for people who wanted to spread lies -- nor was the birth announcement that appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser announcing the birth (in Hawaii) of Mr. and Mrs. Obama's infant son. (Think of how Machiavellian the conspiracy would have had to be in order for someone to "fake" the American birth of this baby, place a non-official announcement in the newspaper as well as having the birth registered in an official manner so that a birth certificate could some day be issued... Because, as we all know, a black baby was so widely viewed as future presidential material in 1961, when civil rights laws were respected throughout America and every black American was viewed as a future national leader. (Yes, that is indeed sarcasm in that last sentence.)

    People who perpetrated the lie that Obama was less "native-born" than Bush II, or Clinton, or Reagan have a lot to be ashamed about. I hope they will now repent. I also hope people will not blame the person who was telling the truth (Obama) for not doing a more thorough, more efficient job of showing how crazy (or malicious) the rumor-spreaders and liars have been.

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  8. Actually, I see we're moving on to the next conspiracy theory, that Obama renounced his citizenship in Indonesia, which some assert he can disprove by releasing college admissions and financial aid records.

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  9. That one's been around for a while; I remember hearing about it during the campaign.

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