Birthers

So it seems the search for Obama's "real" birth certificate continues despite his having produced a Certificate of Live Birth, despite the state of Hawaii having confirmed it to be legitimate, despite the birth announcement in the newspaper in Hawaii, despite independent parties having examined his Certificate of Live Birth and pronouncing it legitimate, despite the Supreme Court refusing indulge at least two parties' claims that Obama is not a US citizen. So my question is this: What would it take?

Short of presenting you with a vial of placental ooze which can be DNA tested and then tested for some chemicals in the air native to Hawaii, I can't think of anything that will "prove" his citizenship beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course, if he were white, this probably wouldn't even be an issue.

And really folks, a Certificate of Live Birth is a Birth Certificate. And if they aren't exactly the same, then a Certificate of Live Birth is a more complete version and a Birth Certificate is what they send you when you request a copy, as far as I can tell. But it seems there's no standard and states can call the particular form whatever they'd like.

As for the whole mess about applying for a Hawaiian Birth Certificate if you weren't born in Hawaii - c'mon. Do you really not think there are rules about such a thing? Rules about amending a birth certificate due to birth in a foreign country? You can only apply if you were legally adopted by a citizen of the United States. There is no reason to think that Obama was adopted. And if he did have an amended birth certificate, it would be evident on the certificate itself. Which it's not.

And even if he was born in Kenya, which he clearly wasn't, his mother was a US Citizen. According to US Citizenship laws, any child born abroad to one parent who is a US Citizen will meet the requirements for US citizenship if three conditions are met:

1. At least one of your parents is a US Citizen.

2. The parent who is a US Citizen had lived in the United States at
least five years prior to your birth.

3. The parent who is a US Citizen had lived in the United States for
at least 10 years of his or her life, five of which had to be after his or her 14th birthday.

There doesn't seem to be any evidence at all (yeah, I know it's Wikipedia, but it's what I could find right now, okay?) of Obama's mother living outside the United States at all prior to her marriage to Obama's father or the birth of her son Barack. So even if he were born in Kenya, he's still a natural born US Citizen.

Even though all evidence is to the contrary, we're going to harp on this...until when? Shouldn't we be slightly more concerned with, say, the fact that our current President receives the same treatment in Iraq as the ripped down statue of Saddam Hussein? Oh! I said "Hussein," we should probably whine some more about Obama's middle name.

Realistically speaking, we need to get it together. Our country is in trouble and we need to focus on more than these ludicrous citizenship claims, which have already been debunked. Nothing will be good enough. It's almost as bad as the "God did it" argument. Let. It. Go.

One of AOL's bloggers posted a blog another blog about all this yesterday. I think commenter "Tony" said it best:

"So the conservatives will accept a president who was given a pass in to the Air Nat'l Guard, went AWOL to campaign for another, lost the the popular vote in an election by half a million votes yet was appointed by the Supreme Court and lied to the American public to start a war in Iraq when the enemy was based in Afghanistan, but won't accept a US Senator whose father was born in another country? You're lucky to live in America, where it's not fatal to be stupid."


Thanks Tony!