No. There's a difference between trying to uphold a principle and trying to forestall the potential for mob rule.

Giving the birthers what they want will only send the message that if you harass enough officials - via phone, email, showing up at their personal appearances or office, filing lawsuits or other such methods - you'll get what you want, even if you have absolutely NO right to it. Do you REALLY want to think of what would happen if every crackpot who has some pet theory, project, legislation or whatever realized that the government will give in if they're harassed enough will start doing just that - and claiming the precedent of releasing Obama's birth information - in violation of any number of privacy laws - gives them the right to whatever information it is they're after.

It's much along the same lines of why you don't give in to terrorist demands. Doing so just tells them - and any others who are thinking of trying to use terrorism to get what they want - that it works. The only way to avoid that is to hold the line without wavering.

You give the birthers way too much credit. They are not terrorists - how many Americans have the birfers killed to date? There are more voters than just the birfers that have an interest in Obama's BC, thanks to the widespread media publicity that is here and not going away. You are ignoring the political advantages of clearing the air on at least one issue, and trying to be overly melodramatic IMO. And no privacy laws would be broken if the law is changed for the President and/or Obama simply approves the release. I hope Neil succeeds, think it will help Obama and the Democrats, and "world-wide terrorism" by the birfers will not be increased by a single tea leaf.

And since you bring up terrorism, you think President Jimmy Carter should have just staged an all out air attack on the Iranian Embassy, killing all 66 American hostages and other innocents just to show those Iranians who was the boss? How many American lives do think are worth losing by never negotiating with a terrorist group? 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, a Million? No limit - mass genocide of the world for principles alone? Where do you draw the line? You want to go back to all conservative Republican rule in Congress, The White House, and the Supreme Court in the next couple years? That worked so well before.

I am not obsessed with birfers like some of you. There is a more important target - maintaining at least a partial progressive government at the Federal level. Tell me again how releasing Obama's original BC will cost Obama votes in 2012.

No, but they are 3-year-olds. They are kids who think that if they close their eyes, cover their ears and yell at the top of their lungs that they're not listening, that you'll give into them, and they'll get what they want. They think that if they scream enough about it, they'll get the information, and I do not see them stopping at the birth certificate. How long will it be before they redouble their efforts on Columbia College, demanding the transcripts of Obama's undergrad studies, and how he paid for them (remember, there's a theory out there that Obama attended Columbia as a foreign student)? Do you think that Columbia should then give into that? What about Harvard? Should Obama's kindergarten give into these demands?

You seem to be arguing that we should give into this? However, this is legally a very slippery slope. These people have absolutely no shame, and cannot be relied upon to act reasonably. Remember, these people have no conscious. They have no problem with attacking dead people who cannot defend themselves. They have no problem with saying that Obama murdered his own grandmother, despite that there is no evidence to support that fact. They really don't care. They know their theory. They are literally vile, disgusting human beings who have no morals when it comes to trying to undermine the Presidency. It's like negotiating with a guy who wants to play Russian Roulette with a fully-loaded revolver. Do you say, "Okay, I'll play, but you have to take out 3 of the bullets."

They have no problem taking the word of convicted forgers on documents, and dismissing the word of the Hawaii State Government. They have no problem attacking any judge that rules against them, saying that they have absolutey no morality, and actually accusing them of violating ethics (such as committing ex-parte communications). If Abercrombie releases this, they'll do a couple of things. 1: Pelt Kapoliani Hospital with requests to see the medical records of Stanley Ann Durham (remember, according to some people, a legally valid birth certificate isn't enough. They need to see the reciept that the birth certificate was sold to the person in order to confirm that it was valid). 2: Redouble their efforts at Columbia and Harvard to see Obama's College transcripts (remember, there's theories out there that Obama was a foreign student and paid for it through a foreign scholarship). 3: In the unlikely scenario that anybody who's name is on the birth certificate is still alive, they'll start harassing them. And then on top of that, they'll still maintain that it's a forgery.

There should be absolutely no negotiation with it. You offer to show them the exact same birth certificate that they released over 2 years ago. You offer to sit them down in a room, and then state that this proves to the standards that Obama was born in the United States. You state that this document is accepted by the Federal Government as proof of Citizenship and it's proof of anything else. They have no problem with making up crackpot legal theories that would not go anywhere inside a courtroom (my personal revenge dream is that it does get to the Supreme Court, and Scalia writing for a 9-0 Court starts quoting Blackstone in his opinion, and starts saying how Natural Born comes from English Common Law).

Why would you want to, Smithereens? Do you start by agreeing to their dilusion that "a valid Hawaii State Birth Certificate" doesn't actually prove anything?

Back up a step. I did NOT say that birthers are terrorists. I said that the rationale for not giving in to their demands is similar to the reasoning for not giving into terrorists. I was making an analogy not an equivalence.



When talking with others, if I bring up the issue, most of the time, the other person has no idea what I'm talking about. I don't think the questions among sane people are all that widespread.



You want to talk about political consequences? Currently, one of the biggest memes about Obama is that he capitulates far too easily to the Republicans - that he doesn't fight for the things he said he'd fight for, and that he gives in to their demands when he doesn't need to. In my experience of talking politics with others, that seems to be the single biggest concern people who voted for him in 2008 have, and may well be a determining factor in whether they vote for him again. If they're already considering not voting for him because they see him as unable to stand up to the Republicans on tougher issues, do you really think his capitulating to the demands of a bunch of wackjobs who have no legal right to the documents they're demanding is going to HELP him any?

For people who are curious and sane, showing them the COLB he's already released, pointing out the official seal and signature from the HDOH, explaining the concept of it being prima facia (sp?) evidence and that it is the exact form that would be sufficient to prove natural-born citizenship for any legal purpose should be sufficient for them to have their concerns put to rest. If it isn't, then the likelihood of yet another document from the HDOH also saying he was born there convincing them isn't, IMO, terribly high.



I'm not sure that I think it's a good idea to repeal privacy laws that protect ALL of us just so one person can satisfy the curiosity of a small bunch of nutters who won't accept it anyway. And I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I believe the law that prevents the release is federal (HIPPA?) not state. As to creating a special law to allow the State of Hawaii to violate the privacy of one person - again, based solely on the pressure of people who aren't going to accept the document as valid anyway - is exactly the kind of precedent I don't think should be set.

Additionally, as I understand it, under the Hawaiian laws, not even Obama would be able to get a copy of his original long form birth certificate. The law simply does not provide access to it to anyone other than those in the HDOH. If Obama could not get a copy for himself, he would not have the ability to authorize anyone else to access, either.

As to creating a special law to allow the State of Hawaii to violate the privacy of one person - again, based solely on the pressure of people who aren't going to accept the document as valid anyway - is exactly the kind of precedent I don't think should be set.

Imagine that in the future there's another president, and a rumour starts that he has AIDS. People start saying that his HIV status must be revealed in the interest of national security because, if he IS HIV positive, he is both at risk of being blackmailed by foreign interests and at risk of developing dementia as the disease progresses, making him vulnerable to using poor judgment in office. Since there's no way to tell for sure when the dementia starts to set in, they might say, he should be removed as unfit to prevent his compromised mental faculties from doing harm to the country. Do we then pass another law to require him to open his medical records so everyone can know his HIV status?



As I noted above - and am repeating just to make sure it's clear - I don't equate birthers with terrorists. I noted a similarity in the rationale of not giving in to either group. If I were to say that the reason someone who's had their heart broken by a total jerk might be cautious before getting involved in a new relationship is similar to why someone who's burned their hand on a hot stove tends to be cautious around stoves, would you think I was saying the jerk was a stove?



Wow, talk about over-melodramatic! Where do I draw the line? I really can't say - it's not a simple question. Luckily, it's not a decision I'll ever be in a position to make. But let me ask you this: If terrorists learn that by kidnapping 10 people, they can get a prisoner released, or by killing 1,000 people and threatening to kill more, they can get us to close down a military base, what is there to stop them from continuing to take hostages and make demands? Where would YOU draw the line? Just give them everything they want, hoping they'll go away and we won't have to fundamentally change the way we live?

If the terrorists think they can get everything they want through hostage-taking, killing and other such tactics, *everyone* is at a greater risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack, and the government is going to need to implement even more invasive security procedures than they have now.



No, I don't. But if Obama continues to appear willing to appease Republicans by giving them what they want, I think it's pretty likely we'll end up there, especially if the economy doesn't improve in the next two years.



By giving people who voted for him and are already concerned about his apparent unwillingness or inability to stand up to Republicans - especially when he had both the House and Senate with Dem majorities - more reason to think he's too weak to get anything accomplished.

The Chicago Sun-Times joins myself and Smithereens in cheering Abercrombie's efforts, followed by comments from our dearly departed ex-troll jy22077 and Joey Farah himself.

Joey is not happy, poor feller. He claims he used to write for the Sun-Times, and accuses them of "maliciously and irresponsibly misrepresent[ing] the facts of this story." They'll prob'ly issue a complete retraction later today.

I think we're focusing too much on releasing the LFBC. That won't be possible without President Obama's consent, and I strongly doubt that it will ever happen (much as I'd like to see it myself).

What we need to be doing is coming up with alternative ideas and strategies that might help defeat birtherism.

Given that Abercrombie can't release the LFBC, what should he do instead?

He could defuse the situation and perhaps do some good by talking about President Obama's parents. He need not ever refer to where and when Obama was born, much less to a birth certificate. That would be implicit in his recounting of his friendship with Barack Sr. and Stanley Ann. It would have been better for him to do this without fanfare that he is going after the Birfers, but that sort of mistake seems typical of politicians.

As to the remarks equating birthers with terrorists, I believe that's exactly what they are, they are paper terrorists, IMO. Giving in to their demands is the wrong thing to do, especially if laws are enacted specifically for the release of information against the wishes of the person supposedly protected by those laws, a protection which all of us enjoy, and sets a very bad precedent. If Obama himself authorized the release of his so-called "long-form" BC it will make no difference to the whackjobs at all, will (as already evidenced) only increase the rhetoric. Whether it would help with basically sane people voting for him or not is another question, and frankly I don't believe it would.

That said, as I hear Gov. Abercrombie, I hear him saying he wants to see if he can legally release "more information" regarding Obama's Hawaiian birth, (and Obama's parents) not that he necessarily is saying he wants to release Obama's "long-form" BC. I think it goes without saying that merely stating orally or providing a letter or proclamation regarding "more information" would do no good whatsoever to any segment of the population.

I read that Justice Scalia is going to give Constitution 101 lessons to the teabaggers in congress. Perhaps when he gets to Article II he can 'splain exactly what makes a person a natural-born citizen according to the constitution and legal precedent. They will all be quite upset when they learn the truth about citizenship. My guess is they will all then scream that Scalia has been bought off, like everyone else in Merkuh and that will also do no good, just as releasing Obama's BC would do no good.

I don't think the release would necessarily hurt Obama as far as votes in 2012 is concerned, but I certainly don't think it will help either, therefore, I see no benefit to the release, but feel it should only be released on his authorization, and I feel it's too late to have any positive effect.

Well its been established that Obama could get a non certified copy of his vital record if he wanted to. I dont have a dog in this either way, but I feel this statement is the result of righteous long building anger building up in the good Governor. I think both sides in this have made good points, btw.

Like the little old lady at a convention of cardiologists who jumps up when a speaker has collapsed on the rostrum and yells "Give 'him chicken soup" to which one of the physicians says "it won't help, he's had a heart attack" -- and she yells back, indignantly -- "Well, it won't hoit!"

I agree with my fellow grumpy people, Smithereens.

Abercrombie has phrased it exactly right -- he's defending the memory of his two departed friends, who can't defend themselves. He's not "helping" Barack Obama prove he was born in Hawai'i. Although that would be a necessary by-product.

Most of the U.S. knows the birfers are marginal conspiracy lunatics. But there might be 1%-2% of the vote that would be influenced by the conspiracy being put to rest -- for them. (Forget about the birfers.) And in a closely divided country, where campaigning to the polls tightens things up considerably, that could be the margin of victory.

While we see a very small part of the big picture, our views are skewed by our perspective. Abercrombie is a politician who (I hope) sees the big picture and sees it correctly.

In any event, we shall see. I doubt any Fogbowzers are advising the Governor of Hawai'i on this.

The hardcore birfers will not be satisfied, and will scream conspiracy and AberCOMMIE, not matter what. The hardcore birfer movement has utterly failed in their goal to remove Obama. However their secondary goal (and what I believe the primary intent of those who fund or otherwise use the birfer movement) to generate doubt about the President and create the impression that he is somehow foreign and not American has been much more successful.

I can see how this would backfire. I would actually have preferred in 2008 Olympia Snowe and Lindsey Graham (for example) taking the lead on this issue and getting a non-binding senate resolution passed for Obama. However, it seems unlikely that the GOP leadership will do such a thing. Failing that, if at an appropriate time Governor Abercrombie was able to release the long form, it might give some doubters who are swing voters reason to well, not doubt. I sincerely expect the 2012 campaign, judging by the tactics used by the Republican Party so far, to be one of Real American Candidate (GOP Nominee) vs. the Socialist Hussein.

It is important to remember that not all those who wonder about the President's origins, if we are to believe the polls, are hard core birfers. They may just have received a chain email from a birfer or what not. They may not scream conspiracy just because the governor of Hawaii releases a new document. They probably have never heard of de Vattel or the two citizen parents theory. The issue of whether the President is American enough, no matter how ridiculous it appears to me, does get play in your media.

I believe it is the duty of the Democratic Party to not surrender the ground on this one. While I believe that releasing the long form could, um, backfire if done ineptly, it could also help (if done as part of a concerted effort) reach some of those independents and swing voters who may have doubts, no matter how unfounded.

Another avenue possible would be to get a few birfer bills passed in conservative red states and then submit the COLB. Having I don't know, Mississippi vouch for the President publicly might work as an alternative too.

Abercrombie encouraging the concern trolls: Democrats Force ‘Birther’ Issue to Rise Again: What Gives?

Again, it's not about convincing the birthers. It's not even about convincing the 22% of voters that think Obama was born somewhere else. The former are snake-oil salesmen and the latter are morons. It's about being able to say, with a convincing narrative, that Eric Cantor hangs around with snake-oil salesmen and morons!

Of course the birthers will want more, but they can only exert what credibility they have. How many times did Dick Morris say that indictments against Bill and/or Hillary were just around the corner?

I don't care about birthers demanding Obama's kindergarten records. Who will believe them when their vaunted LFBC sai exactly what we all know it will say? I want Eric Cantor's next opponent to run an ad saying "When our economy was flailing, Eric palled around with conspiracy freaks!" I want his opponents to be able to demand he return the dollars given him by paper terrorists! I want him to run screaming every time he sees an overly-made-up Russian immigrant!

The birth certificate is the briar patch from B'rer Rabbit. Please, please don't release the birth certificate which completely discredits the most virulent of the President's opponents!

Oh, yeah, the freepers will stop clamoring for blood after more records are released:



(I know no one really thinks they'll stop.)

Stephen Tyrone Johns, for one.

I doubt Abercrombie is giving fools like Taitz much thought with this, but I'll bet he's still pissed that he had to sit there while Bill Posey's (R FL) HR 1503, the Presidential Eligibility Act, was introduced in 2009, with all its flirting implications. PJ has such a wealth of old information & browsing there just now reminds me to name the co-signers again, all Republicans of course:

Marsha Blackburn - TN
Dan Burton - IN
John Campbell - CA
John Carter - TX
Michael Conaway - TX
John Culberson - TX
Trent Franks - AZ
Louis Gohmert - TX
Robert Goodlatte - VA
Randy Neugebauer - TX
Ted Poe - TX

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1503/show His goal is to ridicule folks like these, & their back-pedaling & goal-post-relocating would be a good thing to see.

I get as tired as you of birther arguments. However, when I was responding to a birther, I came up with this:

I can think of 5 reasons off the top of my head that Obama would not release it.

1. There have been 72 Birther Lawsuits. Not one of them would have gone away if he had released it. Every single one of those lawsuits included arguments that he was ineligible on other grounds other than his place of birth. Whether that be some crazy theory that Vattel was more influential than 400 years of English Common Law to a bunch of trained English Lawyers that they'd use a term that didn't appear in Vattel's works until a English translation came out 10 years after the constitution was ratified, or whether that be that he somehow lost his citizenship when he was 6-years-old because of the actions of his parents, flying in the face of 70+ years of American Juris Prudence. So, he would have spent the exact same money fighting these lawsuits whether or not he released the birth certificate.

2. He knows that the birthers would do the exact same thing that they did when he released his other document. They'd claim without any actual proof that it was a forgery, then they claim that it doesn't matter as anybody could get one saying that they were born in Hawaii, and then they'd say that it doesn't matter anyways, because Obama is ineligible to be President because of some other means. Birthers are vile, disgusting people who have no problem with suggesting that Obama murdered his grandmother to further their dilusion. Why should he believe that Birthers will keep to their word and put this all to rest if he releases just one more record? Have you seen the list of records the birthers want now? It includes his kindergarten records. Birthers have no interest in whether or not this President is actually valid. They use that as a pretense of opposing and attacking him. In reality, they're looking for a fishing expidition to release information.

3. It would set a bad precedent. There are 1.3 million people living in Hawaii, so it also stands to argue that there would be about that many people who were born in Hawaii (I don't have exact numbers). Obama, by releasing his birth certificate, would actually be saying that the Hawaiian Birth Certificate that any one of them get when they apply to Hawaii, is not actual proof of anything. Furthermore, all states have largely gone to birth certificates like this. So, he would actually be invalidating the birth certificates of anybody who's gotten them. And doing all that for a group of people who have stooped to every new low to actually attack him.

4. He actually believes in the Constitution, when it says that the Judicial Branch must have a case or contraversy when it hears a case. And he also believes that the Judicial Branch does not qualify the President, that the Legislative Branch does and did so when they ratified the vote of the Electoral College. A case has a constitutional standing requirement, which cannot be waved by any side. In order for a case to be heard by a court, the court must have jurisdiction over it. And the cheapest way to fight a case is to get it dismissed at the first possible entity. So, he wants to uphold the constitution by requiring that the defendents actually have standing to sue him.

5. There is not one vote to be gained out there, and by leaving it out there, he knows that the Republicans have to deal with it. Not one person who says that he's not legitimate would turn around and vote for him if he caved into the Birthers. And furthermore, leaving it out there just forces the Republicans to pander to these lunatics in the primaries, which then gives him material to use against them in the General Elections.

I disagree of course. If the birthers are red and the obots are blue, then the majority of voters are a thousand shades of purple. The red and blues at the extremes always vote the same way. Nothing will change their vote. But the majority in between will be influenced by seemingly small events. Too many entirely reasonable purple people have asked, why doesn't Obama just release his damn long form and end all the craziness? Now it will NOT end the craziness among the reds as you all like to point out ad nauseam. But it will influence the votes of a small percentage of purples. And since purples have more votes then the reds and blues combined, I view any further debunking of Obama's BC as positive for the next election.

I am not impressed as a bluish purple people (eater?) by Obama's arrogance in ignoring the BC issue after the COLB publication 2 1/2 years ago. And I still will vote for him over any Republican, even if he is shown to be an alien from the planet Preliumtarn in solar system Zarss of Galactic Sector QQ7. But others will not - either because he appears to be stonewalling and hiding something, or he refuses to confront the red people straight on with the evidence he is deliberately withholding. Chris Mathews and Neil Abercrombie understand the makeup and thinking of the majority purple voters, and I hope they can enlighten Obama to the political realities of full revelation, in terms of his re-election.

I don't see the arrogance in not paying attention to something that probably doesn't even impinge on his consciousness. I doubt Clinton spent much time paying attention to all the patently frivolous kook suits brought by militia nuts, either, or Bush before him, to the similar bizarre suits by pro se wackos accusing him of running child sex rings, etc. The fact is, the President has far more important tasks than paying attention to the fringe of the fringe. That's why he has lawyers.

Paying attention to birfers would be like taking time out of his schedule to go respond to disheveled street crazies pushing shopping carts and waving signs written in crayon calling him a space alien.

It is not the birthers that Obama is concerned about. Every reply here seems to think this is all about the birfers, and no other voters. You TFBers' have birfers on the brain. Stop obsessing over the bugs in the tree bark on one diseased tree, and start looking at the forest.

Let me repeat myself for the 5th time - the release of more BC information by Neil or Obama is NOT just about the birfers.

If Obama releases this kind of information at all, it should not be by itself, but as part of a highly documented multimedia presentation on his whole life, a sort of biography museum, something that can continue to exist in the future as an historical artifact. I'd like to see something like that, because I like documents and detailed primary source information.

I'd still prefer to have Obama's time taken up governing, rather than coddling crazy people. And anyone at this point who is too dumb to use Google, or too dumb to make the right decision after seeing overwhelming evidence on one side, and literally nothing but ravings on the other, is probably too dumb to be helped.

This isn't to say I don't think Obama shouldn't authorize the release of such information if a court of competent jurisdiction makes a valid discovery order requiring it, but the likelihood of that event is vanishingly small.

No rational person begrudged George W. Bush for not responding to the truther's "concerns" about his "involvement" in 9/11.

Would Bush have gotten one more vote had he done so? Of course not.

Will Obama got more votes if Abercrombie does so? Maybe.

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/to ... ten-lee-at

I didn't carry over the links.

He's right about people not knowing the swiftboaters were debunked. (Let's also remember our little Hun is so proud to have been a part of the swiftboaters.)

It's no surprise to me that "Rovian' is the current term used for political smears. (Much to the chagrin of Floyd Brown, who remains proud of his involvement in the Willie Horton ad.)


I have no idea whether Obama should address the smears or not. It seems to me it would only be the beginning of an endless barrage of questions he would have to answer to *prove* himself *American* enough.

I think we need to step up the mocking.

And - if they truly ARE reasonable people - they should be capable of understanding that the certificate he's already release is NOT a forgery, and that there is no *reasonable* evidence to suggest otherwise, and that the officials in charge of vital records in the state of Hawaii have validated it's authenticity. If they're actually reasonable, that should put an end to their concern.

If they question Obama's judgment in not releasing the long form, explaining that doing so would NOT end the craziness and would only be appeasing a bunch of nutters who would never vote for him anyway should also be easily understood.

If explaining to these people that the Hawaiian government - currently in Republican hands - has officially and publicly validated the COLB Obama's already posted isn't sufficient to put their questions to rest, what reason is there to think that they'd be more accepting of a second document validated by the Hawaiian government - especially when the LFBC would be released by not only a governor from Obama's own party, but one who knew his parents? Birthers will simply claim that Gov. Abercrombie has even MORE reason to falsely validate a forged document than Gov. Lingle did, in effect making the LFBC even *more* "suspect." If the birther's questions about the COLB were enough to make them want to see the LFBC, why wouldn't they be similarly swayed by the birther's questions about the LFBC?



I'm sorry, but I do NOT see *any* arrogance in Obama ignoring the BC issue. If he'd ignored the rumours about his middle name being "Muhammad" and not posted his COLB to try and put an end to *that,* it's pretty unlikely any of these other questions would even have come up! Where *I* see arrogance is in people thinking they should be able to demand he provide more documentation simply because a small (though loud) number of people made a stink over something they didn't understand and about which they've been unwilling to accept any explanation - in particular since NO OTHER PRESIDENT has had to provide it.



Exactly what is "full revelation" in this context? If these reasonable people decide that the LFBC isn't sufficient, should he be expected to start releasing other documents that some have demanded he release? Should he call up Occidental College and have them release those records to end the questions that he attended on a Fullbright Scholarship, which is only for foreign students? Should he release his other college records? How about his kindergarten records or that baptismal certificate people want to see? Just how much information should be be required to release to satisfy these reasonable people who are currently unwilling to accept his COLB?