If Obama Is Natural-Born, Why Suppress Evidence?
By JOHN F. GASKI Posted 04/26/2011 05:24 PM ET
Second Of Two Parts
So what of the cumulative evidence against our maybe-president’s citizenship? Let the reader judge the balance and weight of a summary appraisal. (Curious machinations over a crucial piece of evidence, a birth certificate of all things, changed the balance for me.)
1. If B.H. Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen, those who flack for him should be able to do better than the unpersuasive defense they have offered.
More specifically damning, haven’t you noticed how Obama apologists rarely offer a substantive argument for his citizenship at all, but instead use personal attack, invective, sophistry, demagogy and ridicule? The bottom line: If you believe that the artist formerly known as Barry Soetoro really is a natural U.S. citizen, prove it. If the subject of the controversy cannot, others are not likely to be able to either.
(When this writer uses attack, ridicule, etc., it is not gratuitous but grows from the substance, such as the appearance of an insidious political provocation and national existential emergency, as here.)
2. A rhetorical question: If B.H. Obama is not hiding something terrible in his birth records, why has he spent millions covering them up? Maybe it is something else entirely, but maybe not — and ultimately it may not matter, for this deductive reason: Obama knows the cover-up only creates grave public suspicion about his constitutional eligibility, at least in responsible quarters, so if something else is the real secret, it must be something as bad or worse.
3. An attempted exculpatory answer has actually come from Obama’s fiercest opponents. Conservative radio hosts sometimes mention the insider belief that they are being sandbagged or “rope-a-doped,” that the birth certificate would reveal valid Hawaiian origin, and Obama is saving it to discredit them or Republicans if they raise the issue.
This amounts to pure, bald speculation, however, because those radio talkers do not disclose any basis. By way of rebuttal, the speculation does not seem to add up for the following reason. The 2008 election against John McCain was very close until nearly the end, and the primary campaign against Hillary Clinton even closer. A late, unforeseen turn of events, and either race could have gone the other way.
Even liberal political campaign organizations are very conservative tactically. If the Obama side had such a master-stroke ace-in-the-hole, it would have been beyond imprudent not to play it in or near the endgame. Barack Obama, or whatever his real name is, may be a radical, but he is not crazy and far from stupid.
In fact, evidence mounts that he has executed the most brilliant coup in world history. (This argument also rules out any likelihood that Obama is covering up just to be obstinate.)
4. Alternatively, Obama may in fact be a natural-born American, but then took dual citizenship during his Indonesian years, which he never relinquished. If so, a cover-up on Obama’s part now would still be necessary because he knows U.S. voters would never abide a clandestine dual citizen as President. In that event, a monumental scandal would still prevail.
In fact, when Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, that nation’s government required Indonesian citizenship for school attendance. Obama’s early school records do confirm his Indonesian citizenship. This information may be the closest thing to a smoking gun, as it clinches at least dual citizenship in the strange case of Barack Obama’s background.
(Yes, Obama is already established to be a citizen of Kenya as well, per a technical quirk of that country’s law — even if born in Hawaii to one Kenyan parent, that is — but two foreign citizenships out of three may be too much for the U.S. electorate to digest. Obama probably sees it that way, too; hence, the cover-up of other records, including collegiate, that would impinge on contemporary citizenship.)
Therefore, the Hawaiian birth issue may ultimately and ironically be an immaterial red herring. The critical condition necessitating the gross political deception may have eventuated later and elsewhere. Even if those old Honolulu birth clippings are genuine, it would not matter. If not constitutionally disqualified from office, Obama might be pragmatically. Would that not be the supreme irony?
5. Perhaps the most plausible scenario is that the presumed Mr. Obama never had his legal name changed from Barry Soetoro, and therefore has committed a form of fraud by signing official documents with a false alias, as well as perjury by falsely swearing to that effect on many occasions (as in legal application questions about past use of an alias). That would be in addition to a massive deception of the American voters about his true identity. If this is so, no wonder the so-called Barack Obama feels he must cover it up.
More bald speculation, but on my part this time? Actually, some basic analytic support is at hand: It is fact that Mr. Obama is hiding not only birth records but virtually all vital history, including medical and academic. Yet he and his allies bleat that it is not about citizenship. Well, then — accepting that — what else of comparable magnitude could there be?
It must be something of similar gravity to justify such a full-court press and stonewall defense including the legal expenditures. The possibility of a lesser motive was disposed of previously.
6. If and when Obama and his political handlers play the race card on this matter, that will confirm the absolute worst because that is what they do when they have nothing else. Sadly, we are beginning to witness this tactic already on TV talk shows. Case closed.
In sum, we must ask, what does the balance of evidence seem to be now? Inescapably, that evidence is primarily analytic and indirect because the empirical has been so skillfully and aggressively suppressed. Questions, both old and new, and a different, open perspective have been proffered here because the elephant in the room can no longer be sensibly ignored — despite the wishes of the Obama-handmaiden media. (And thank you, Donald Trump.)
The politico-media environment actually resembles a case of mass hysteria. Irrational perceptions, actually non-perceptions of the “emperor-has-no-clothes” look-away variety, drive out the natural and healthy skepticism.
To confirm, ponder how the liberal Democrats and liberal Democrat media (and it is long overdue to apply that locution) would react if George W. Bush had had a missing birth certificate. To doubly confirm, recall how the partisan Democrats obsessively tried to disqualify John McCain’s presidential eligibility although there was nothing to the issue, self-evidently. Then, a different segment, naive people of good will, just cannot bring themselves to believe the monstrous prospect of a usurper in our White House, so they look the other way, too.
Think about it. There is major and obvious doubt about the President’s most fundamental personal information and qualification for office, including skepticism by a large fraction of the citizenry (per poll results), and Mr. Obama refuses to prove something readily provable by mere release of his birth record! What is wrong with this picture? What is Obama hiding? Incredible.
Given the magnitude of the stakes, though, we cannot indulge our preference to pretend that all is well, that nothing is as it appears, that we are not in a “Twilight Zone” episode or “Through the Looking Glass” after all, and anyway we don’t care. The question we cannot escape, no matter how much we want to avoid it, is: What if the worst is true? Proving citizenship is totally routine and simple for any U.S. citizen — except for Barack Obama, apparently.
The (presumed) president of the United States not only has not met that test but does not even try to — in his in-your-face, preternatural arrogance and audacity. Why not? What is really going on here? What game is being played? What ruse is being played on our country?
If the truth is as horrible as the extant evidence makes it appear, the implications are without limit. National hysteria and national insanity? More like national suicide. Even more accurately, for the nation that casually allows such a coup d’etat to be imposed, national assisted suicide may be the analogue.
We actually have been here before, sort of. The public could not bring itself to believe the numerous accusations against Bill Clinton. How could a U.S. president be not only a serial adulterer, liar and philanderer, but one that, for good measure, exposes himself to women who are near-total strangers?
Then we learned that the worst was indeed true. Clinton finally admitted to perjury and obstruction of justice in his plea deal (but without using those words explicitly). And even now, some cannot believe that John F. Kennedy regularly cavorted around the White House with Mafia call girls, but that has been verified. Then there is Richard Nixon.
We have been here before more recently. Barack Obama has had a long and close association with an anti-American terrorist involved in the bombing of the Pentagon and multiple police stations. The associate’s name is Bill Ayers, of course. No, Ayers was not just “a guy in the neighborhood,” as Obama tried to pretend. Moreover, and maybe worse, there were those 20 years as an even closer acolyte of the manifest anti-American, Marxist, racist preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
So lying about citizenship (or one of the reviewed possibilities that are nearly as bad) is junior varsity compared with Obama’s sordid personal history. Therefore, the preceding analysis is rendered mild and moderate, which makes it all the more plausible and troubling.
The conclusion: Barack Obama’s covered-up background is very likely sufficient to disqualify him from the presidency, perhaps or perhaps not constitutionally through noncitizenship, or more practically because of multiple acts of fraud and deceit over legal name and multiple citizenships. Full public knowledge would surely induce prompt impeachment or electoral pariah status, that is.
Again, poignantly, and finally, if one disagrees: Prove it. You are welcome to try. It should be easy. So why is it so hard? Yes, that question is rhetorical.
• Gaski is a professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. His primary research field is the nature of social and political power. He is author of “Frugal Cool” (Corby, 2009) and “The Language of Branding” (Nova Science, 2010) and is a longtime, but former, registered Democrat.