Why the Birth Certificate Issue is Important

It's not the nature of the evidence but the seriousness of the charge.

When William Jefferson Blythe Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, most Democrats and the entirety of the mainstream media were outraged that a sitting president should be so ill-used for purely political ends. The argument made by the Clinton spin machine – and eagerly gobbled up by their slobbering allies in the media – was that the impeachment was about Mr. Clinton's private sex life, and that Prosecutor Ken Starr was simply digging up salacious material to smear Their Guy. Clinton's polling data remained high, and the knock-kneed Senate was too frightened of this popular President to vote to convict. RINO Benedict Arlen Specter tried to vote "not proved" but changed his vote to acquittal when he was not allowed to do so.

But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives did not fear the dark of night, nor the political arrow that flies by day; they impeached the randy Mr. Clinton despite the potential political ramifications. Why did they do that? Because they understood the arguments, understood that what Mr. Clinton did was not a personal matter between himself and Monica Lewinsky (and Hillary and Chelsea) but involved a wrong committed against a largely unknown woman from Arkansas. Clinton was not impeached over Lewinsky; she was simply evidence of corruption, of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and perjury.

Perjury. Keep that word in mind.

There has been a simmering issue, one that began before Barack Hussein Obama took office.  The Obama camp has spent over a million dollars to keep his birth certificate (and other documents) from being examined. Everyone assumed that the birth certificate issue would go away, but like the killer in a bad horror flick it continues to rise from the grave. Why? The issue could be laid to rest very easily, yet the Obamaniacs refuse to do so.  Perhaps they are playing the "birthers" as chumps?

A quick point on that; "birthers" is intended as a pejorative, much like calling George Bush "shrub." We should not be using it on our side, whether one agrees with what I would call the disclosurists or not. Frankly, I am mindful of Saul Alinsky:

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

The attempt here is to tie the disclosurists in with the right-wing nuts in the pro-life camp, you know, those people that DHS has dubbed as domestic terrorists . . ..

Are they playing the disclosurists for chumps?  Remember, Obama was a community organizer and devotee of Alinsky. Another Alinsky rule:

Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.

The crushing defeat of Republicans by Obama and his Party have given us chronic bullied syndrome; we think they are unbeatable. The enemy sees this bunch as having far too many weapons at their disposal. Sometimes a thing is exactly what it seems.

And it seems that somebody has something to hide.

Watergate was not about the crime (which, it seems likely, Nixon was not behind) but about the cover-up. Remember, it's not the nature of the evidence but the seriousness of the charge.

Once again, we should take a page from Alinsky:

Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

The enemy has demanded such disclosures from Republicans as a routine matter; remember Dan Rather's fake Air National Guard story? Proof was demanded from President George W. Bush that he fulfilled his obligations. Remember Clarence Thomas having to prove he was not a sexual predator? Remember the demands that Sarah Palin prove she was the mother of her Down's Syndrome child?

And the Democrats never judged their own wing nuts; how many members of the Democrat caucus were present at the screening of Fahrenheit 911, and how many rose in thunderous applause at the end? Yet this steady drumbeat of falsehood, innuendo, and out-and-out lies eroded support for President Bush and Republicans in Congress. In short, it worked; the nature of the evidence was immaterial because the public was soured by the accusations.

Now, here we have a President who swore an oath that he was qualified to be president, and yet he refuses to allow the American People to verify the veracity of that claim – and his refusal has cost him a million dollars.

Is this a case of perjury?  President Clinton was impeached for perjury.

The media used to howl about the "public's right to know" yet remain silent here.

Many good conservatives are telling the disclosurists to shut up, to stifle themselves (you gotta love Archie Bunker) in a manner almost identical to the Obama Administration, which is demanding silence from critics. Now, I'm not impugning their motives, but I am saying they are wrong to attempt this; it suggests an embarrassment, a sense that, yes, we are a bunch of kooks who are trying to keep quiet lest the general public get wise. But this is about more than just politics (though it is a solid political weapon); this is about the rule of law.

We heard much about the rule of law during the Clinton impeachment. The whole reason the House went forward was to uphold the rule of law. The Constitution lays out the qualifications for office holders, and Congress codifies those qualifications. One qualification is that a person must be either born here, or be born to citizens. In the case of Obama the law at that time specified that a woman could not pass on her citizenship if the father was a non-citizen and the child was born overseas, if she had not reached the age of majority. Under U.S. law at that time Barack Obama would not be a citizen, since his mother was only 18 IF he was born in Kenya – something his maternal grandmother has claimed. Oh, and Obama was a dual citizen of both Kenya and the U.S., a point he neglected to tell the American voters.

The point is, there is no controlling legal authority on the federal level; that is why the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. It is ironic that SCOTUS should suddenly rediscover federalism here, but what are we to do? Essentially, the Court ruled this a matter for the individual states. That the states have been horribly lax (for example, an immigrant from Nicaragua – Roger Calero – ran for president on the Socialist Worker's Party in California in 2004) and that the President is the one office holder who is truly elected nationally, it seems important to have some sort of mechanism to double-check the qualifications of the man who would be king (an increasingly literal statement).

But both parties are salivating over the prospective votes of the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants already here (and even if you don't believe many of them vote, at least you must know many of their children ultimately will – especially if we get Obamamnesty) and neither side wants to make waves. How can the Republicans push this issue, with so many potential voters being told that their children could one day become president? There are a LOT of non-native born children out there, and this represents a potentially huge voting block. The open borders crowd see this as an enormous loser, a stealing of the American Dream from hard-working illegal aliens. This is vitally important to the future; how many more unqualified candidates will we see? We need some solid laws to clarify this, and now is the time to have that debate.

In point of fact, we have been disregarding unpalatable portions of the Constitution for years. The Constitution resembles the comic book Plastic Man: something stretched beyond any sort of corporeal sensibility. Democrats and their media allies have argued for the "living Constitution" while we conservatives have argued for "original intent," and even the recently confirmed Sonia Sotomayor claimed she would follow original intent in her rulings. Oh, and SCOTUS could not remove Obama from office if they were willing to trigger a Constitutional Crisis. Yet here we have a case of original intent, and many conservatives are running for the hills, because they are fearful of a political backlash.

But will there be one? Obama surrogates have supplied certificates of live birth and other dubious documents, but what if a smoking gun is produced? There are only two ways of removing a sitting president: vote him out of office after his term has expired, or impeachment. SCOTUS cannot remove him, nor is there any recall mechanism. Will the Democrat-controlled Congress remove their own president? Granted, they'll still have Joe Biden in office, something likely to embarrass them.

Or they can amend the Constitution to allow non-native-born citizens to be president (hear that Ah-nold!). Neither of these prospects are going to be pleasing to them; either step is apt to cause a political uproar. Republicans really won't lose by keeping this issue alive, at least as long as they keep stressing that this is about transparent government and establishing proper legal mechanisms to follow the law. The Democrats have no good options here, and are forced to follow another Alinsky rule:

Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

They are trying (rather desperately) to make this issue go away by ridiculing those who are demanding answers. Unfortunately, many on our side are doing likewise.

Once again, why doesn't the President simply put this stuff (and it includes many other documents) out there for the public? We know this man has broken the law in the past with his cocaine use; is he trying to protect some other dark secret? Stop people at the birth certificate, and perhaps that will protect other, more incriminating documents? Democrats have demanded special prosecutors for less, and have engaged in endless fishing expeditions with very little credibility – think Valerie Plame, for instance.

Yes, there are other issues begging attention, but they often contain dizzying detail guaranteed to glaze over the eyes of the average voter. Will the average citizen understand – or care about – the details of Obama's monetary policy? Cheating to become president is something everyone can understand.

Americans still respect the rule of law, and still believe in living by the rules. Whether Obama broke those rules or not is immaterial; it isn't about the crime it's about the cover-up, or at least about the seriousness of the charge. He works for us; he is not just beholden to one region or group, but to the American People, and he is accountable to the nation as a whole. Granted, there are times when a president must invoke Executive Privilege, but this isn't such a time. Americans have every right to know these things.