America — what have you done?

by Melanie Phillips

President Obama has had, by general consent, a torrid First Fortnight. To put it another way, it has taken precisely two weeks for the illusion that brought him to power to be exposed for the nonsense that it so obviously was. The transformational candidate who was going to sweep away pork-barrel politics, lobbyists and corruption has been up to his neck in sleaze, as eviscerated here by Charles Krauthammer. Despite the fact that he came to power promising to “ban all earmarks,” his “stimulus” bill represents billions of dollars of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections — which have nothing to do with kick-starting the economy and everything to do with favouring pet Democrat causes.

He has been appointing one tax dodger, lobbyist and wheeler-dealer after another. After appointing one official, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who had unaccountably forgotten to pay his taxes, he then watched his designated Health Secretary Tom Daschle fall on his sword because he too had taken a tax holiday. Daschle was furthermore a prominent actor in the world of lobbying and influence-peddling. Leon Panetta, Obama’s nominee for Director of the CIA has also, according to the Wall Street Journal, consulted for prominent companies and sat on the board of a public affairs firm that lobbies Congress. The Weekly Standard reports that Secretary of Labour nominee Hilda Solis was not only involved with a private organization lobbying her fellow legislators on a bill that she helped sponsor, but she apparently kept her involvement secret and failed to reveal a clear conflict of interest.

In foreign policy, Obama has started by trashing his own country through grossly misrepresenting its history and grovelling to America’s enemies such as Iran, which has flicked him aside with undiluted contempt. He has gratuitously upset America’s ally India by suggesting that America should muscle in and resolve the Kashmir question.

His right hand doesn’t seem to know what his left hand is doing. He reportedly asked retired Marine General Anthony Zinni to be US ambassador to Iraq, but then abruptly withdrew the appointment without explanation after it had been confirmed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And the precise role he is offering Dennis Ross — special envoy to Iran? Special adviser to Hillary? Special adviser to other special advisers? — remains mired in confusion.

I have argued before however that, given Obama’s radical roots in the neo-Marxist, nihilist politics of Saul Alinsky, it is the undermining of America’s fundamental values that is likely to be this President’s most strategically important goal. I have also suggested that, since this agenda is promoted through stealth politics which gull the credulous middle-classes while destroying the ground upon which they are standing, his second-tier appointments should be closely scrutinised.

And here’s a humdinger. Obama has picked a man called David Ogden to be deputy Attorney-General. Ogden has made his legal career from representing pornographers, trying to defeat child protection legislation and undermining family values. As FoxNews reported this week, he once represented a group of library directors arguing against the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which ordered libraries and schools receiving funding for the Internet to restrict access to obscene sites. And on behalf of several media groups, he successfully argued against a child pornography law that required publishers to verify and document the age of their models, which would have ensured these models were at least 18.

The Family Research Council has more examples of his contribution to upholding American and western values. In one such case, he expressed the view that abortion was less damaging to a woman than having children:

In sum, it is grossly misleading to tell a woman that abortion imposes possible detrimental psychological effects when the risks are negligible in most cases, when the evidence shows that she is more likely to experience feelings of relief and happiness, and when child-birth and child-rearing or adoption may pose concomitant (if not greater) risks or adverse psychological effects . . .

In another, co-authored brief, he argued that it was an unconstitutional burden on 14-year old girls seeking an abortion for their parents to be notified — because there was no difference between adults and mid-teens in their ability to grasp all the implications of such a decision:

There is no question that the right to secure an abortion is fundamental. By any objective standard, therefore, the decision to abort is one that a reasonable person, including a reasonable adolescent, could make. [E]mpirical studies have found few differences between minors aged 14–18 and adults in their understanding of information and their ability to think of options and consequences when asked to consider treatment-related decisions. These unvarying and highly significant findings indicate that with respect to the capacity to understand and reason logically, there is no qualitative or quantitative difference between minors in mid-adolescence, i.e., about 14–15 years of age, and adults.

And how did the 44th President react to the growing public dismay over the mess he was making? He threw his toys out of the pram — or perhaps that should read, he got into the pram. For he fled the scene of the disaster and sought the company of seven year-olds instead. As the Telegraph reported:

“We were just tired of being in the White House,” he told a group of excited seven-year-olds before discussing Batman and reading them a book.

Tired of being President — after two weeks!

Tax cheats, pork-barrel politics, ancillary child abuse, incompetence, chaos, treachery, and infantilism. America — what have you done?!

Mark Steyn: Obama mythology could use some stimulus

by Mark Steyn

Far from walking on water, president seems all at sea.

In The Washington Post, E.J. Dionne tried to break it gently to us:

“No occupant of the White House has ever been able to walk on water.”

Yeah, sure, no previous occupant of the White House has been able to walk on water — your Eisenhowers and Roosevelts, your Chester Arthurs and Grover Clevelands and whatnot. But Barack didn’t run as just another of those squaresville losers. He was gonna heal the planet and lower the oceans. So, even if he couldn’t walk on water, he should at least be able to paddle in it. “He is a community organizer like Jesus was,” said Susan Sarandon, “and now we’re a community, and he can organize us.”

So how’s that going? Jesus took a handful of loaves and two fish and fed 5,000 people. Barack wants to take a trillion pieces of pork and feed it to a handful of Democratic Party interest groups. Jesus picked twelve disciples. Barack seems to have gone more for one of those Dirty Dozen caper-movie lineups, where the mission is so perilous and so audacious that only the scuzziest lowlifes recruited from every waterfront dive have any chance of pulling it off. The ends justify the mean SOBs: “Indispensable Tim” Geithner, wanted in 12 jurisdictions for claiming his kid’s summer camp as a business expense, is the only guy with the savvy to crack the code of the U.S. economy. Tom “Home, James!” Daschle is the ruthless backseat driver who can figure out how to steer the rusting gurney of U.S. health care through the corridors of power. Charles Bronson is the hardbitten psycho ex-con who can’t go straight but knows how to turn around the Department of the Interior.

And, of course, there’s the lovable dough-faced shnook in the front office, Robert “Fall Guy” Gibbs. He didn’t do nuthin’ wrong, but, when seven nominees die in a grisly shootout with a Taxable Benefit Swat Team in the alley behind the Senate, he makes the mistake of looking sweaty and shifty answering routine questions.

A president doesn’t have to be able to walk on water. But he does have to choose the right crew for the ship, especially if he’s planning on spending most of his time at the captain’s table, schmoozing the celebrity guests with a lot of deep thoughts about “hope” and “change.” Far worse than his Cabinet picks was President Obama’s decision to make the “stimulus” racket the all but sole priority of his first month and then outsource the project to Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Harry Reid.

Appearing on “The Rush Limbaugh Show” last week, I got a little muddled over two adjoining newspaper clippings — one on the stimulus, the other on those octuplets in California — and for a brief moment the two stories converged. Everyone’s hammering that mom — she’s divorced, unemployed, living in a small house with parents who have a million bucks’ worth of debt, and she’s already got six kids. So she has in vitro fertilization to have eight more. But isn’t that exactly what the Feds have done? Last fall, they gave birth to $850 billion of bailout they couldn’t afford and didn’t have enough time to keep an eye on, and now, four months later, they’re going to do it all over again, but this time they want trillionuplets. Barney and Nancy represent the in vitro fertilization of the federal budget. And it’s the taxpayers who’ll get stuck with the diapers.

Those supporters who were wary of touting Obama as the walk-on-water Messiah did their best to lower expectations by hailing him merely as the new FDR. You remember the old FDR — “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Ha! With the new New Deal, we have everything to fear. As President Obama warned Tuesday, “A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.” If you’re of those moonstruck Obammysoxers still driving around with the “HOPE, NOT FEAR” bumper stickers, please note that, due to an unfortunate proofreading error at the printing plant, certain nouns in that phrase may have become accidentally transposed.

As it happens, the best way to ensure catastrophe is to “act now.” It would be nice if the world could all prance along in regimented unison like the Radio City Changettes. But, alas, the foreigners made the mistake of actually reading the “stimulus” bill, and the protectionist measures buried on page 739 subsection XII(d) ended, instantly, the Obama honeymoon overseas. The European Union has threatened a trade war. Up in Canada, provincial premiers called it “a march to insanity.” Wait a minute, I thought the Obama era was meant to be the retreat from insanity, a blessed return to multilateral transnational harmony.

As longtime readers will know, I’m all in favor of flipping the bird to the global community. But at least, when Rummy was doing his shtick about “Old Europe,” he did it intentionally. To cheese off the foreigners entirely accidentally before you’ve even had your first black-tie banquet is quite an accomplishment. Protectionism is serious business to the Continentals. Oh, to be sure, if the swaggering unilateralist Yank cowboy invades some Third World basket-case they’ll seize on it as an opportunity for some cheap moral posturing. But in the end they don’t much care one way or the other. Plunging the planet into global depression, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.

The bloated nonstimulus and the undertaxed nominees are part of the same story. I’m with Tom Daschle: I understand why he had no desire to toss another six-figure sum into the great sucking maw of the federal Treasury. Who knows better than a senator who’s voted for every tax increase to cross his desk that all this dough is entirely wasted? Tom and Tim Geithner and Charlie Rangel and all the rest are right: They can do more good with the money than the United States government can. I only wish they followed the logic of their behavior and recognized that what works for them would also work for every other citizen. Instead, they insist that the sole solution to our woes is a record-setting wasteful government spending spree.

Maybe it’s time for President Obama to come out and give one of his big hopey-changey speeches. It’s been a few weeks now, and I kinda miss them. You know — “We are the change we’ve been waiting for.” “We have nothing to hope for but hope itself.” “Ask not what your hope can change for you, ask what you can hope for your change.” Etc.

But I wonder if the old songs from last month’s hit parade would play as well today. On Wednesday, Salon headlined a story on Obama: “The New Great Communicator . . . Isn’t.” Oh, dear. It’s early days yet, but the gulf between the rhetoric and the reality, between the audacity of hope and the reality of pork, yawns ever wider. Right now, it’s the Obama mythology that urgently needs some stimulus. Some of us never expected him to walk on water. But we didn’t think he’d be all at sea taking on quite so much of it after a mere two weeks.
©MARK STEYN

The Fierce Urgency of Pork

by Charles Krauthammer

“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.” — President Obama, Feb. 4

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear.” Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn’t understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn’t what’s illegal, but what’s legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He’d been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he’s not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don’t get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal’s private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he’d come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama’s image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama’s name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It’s not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It’s not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It’s the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus — and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress’s own budget office says won’t be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new — a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the “fierce urgency of now” includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting “planted” for “ready to market” would mean a windfall garnered from a new “bonus depreciation” incentive.

After Obama’s miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell — and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Obama Just Flatters Himself

by Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON — Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims with “to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.

Is it “new” to acknowledge Muslim interests and show respect to the Muslim world? Obama doesn’t just think so, he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to “restore” the “same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago.”

Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years — the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world — America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved — and resulted in — the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The two Balkan interventions — as well as the failed 1992–93 Somali intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) — were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on earth. Why are we apologizing?

And what of that happy U.S.-Muslim relationship that Obama imagines existed “as recently as 20 or 30 years ago” that he has now come to restore? Thirty years ago, 1979, saw the greatest U.S.-Muslim rupture in our 233-year history: Iran’s radical Islamic revolution, the seizure of the U.S. embassy, the 14 months of America held hostage.

Which came just a few years after the Arab oil embargo that sent the United States into a long and punishing recession. Which, in turn, was preceded by the kidnapping and cold-blooded execution by Arab terrorists of the U.S. ambassador in Sudan and his charge d’affaires.

This is to say nothing of the Marine barracks massacre of 1983, and the innumerable attacks on U.S. embassies and installations around the world during what Obama now characterizes as the halcyon days of U.S.-Islamic relations.

Look. If Barack Obama wants to say, as he said to al-Arabiya, “I have Muslim roots, Muslim family members, have lived in a Muslim country” — implying a special affinity that uniquely positions him to establish good relations — that’s fine. But it is both false and deeply injurious to this country to draw a historical line dividing America under Obama from a benighted past when Islam was supposedly disrespected and demonized.

As in Obama’s grand admonition: “We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name.” Have “we” been doing that, smearing Islam because of a small minority? George Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington six days after 9/11, when the fires of Ground Zero were still smoldering, to declare “Islam is peace,” to extend fellowship and friendship to Muslims, to insist that Americans treat them with respect and generosity of spirit.

And America listened. In these seven years since 9/11 — seven years during which thousands of Muslims rioted all over the world (resulting in the death of more than 100) to avenge a bunch of cartoons — there’s not been a single anti-Muslim riot in the United States to avenge the greatest massacre in U.S. history. On the contrary. In its aftermath, we elected our first Muslim member of Congress and our first president of Muslim parentage.

“My job,” says Obama, “is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives.” That’s his job? Do the American people think otherwise? Does he think he is bravely breaking new ground? George Bush, Condoleezza Rice and countless other leaders offered myriad expressions of that same universalist sentiment.

Every president has the right to portray himself as ushering in a new era of this or that. Obama wants to pursue new ties with Muslim nations, drawing on his own identity and associations. Good. But when his self-inflation as redeemer of U.S.-Muslim relations leads him to suggest that pre-Obama America was disrespectful or insensitive or uncaring of Muslims, he is engaging not just in fiction but in gratuitous disparagement of the country he is now privileged to lead.

Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

Obama and the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause

Obama and the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause
by Randall Hoven

On Monday, the Supreme Court decided not to hear the Donofrio case concerning whether Barack Obama is a natural born citizen and therefore qualified to be President. Also, David Horowitz diagnosed those who claim Obama is not natural born as being afflicted with “Obama Derangement Syndrome”; Horowitz told people to “shut up about the birth certificate.” A bad day for those of us in tinfoil hats. Even Michelle Malkin is against us.

Mr. Horowitz whizzes right by the issue of whether or not Obama is constitutionally qualified. He simply says it doesn’t matter. He asked, “What difference does it make to the future of this country whether Obama was born on U.S. soil?”

When the US Constitution is clear on a matter, we are not supposed to rethink “what difference does it make to the future of this country.” If we do this rethinking at every step, we would not need a Constitution; we would merely cogitate on how proposal X will affect our future. In short, no need for a Constitution.

In this case, the Constitution is very clear. Article II, Section 1 states, “no person except a natural born citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” No fuzz there. No need to look into penumbras and emanations. If a guy ain’t natural born, he can’t be President.

But, the election already happened. Too late, right? That’s Horowitz’s contention: “How viable will our Constitution be if five Supreme Court justices should decide to void 64 million ballots?”

Again, the Constitution is clear on this in the 20th Amendment:

“If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified. . .” (emphasis mine)

The US Constitution tells us exactly what to do in the current situation. The election is not some kind of deadline. Even the true election by Electors is not the deadline. The deadline is “the time fixed for the beginning of his term.” That would be January 20, 2009. We have not yet reached the Constitutional deadline. The Constitution even hints that there is, or should be, some kind of qualification process: “if the President elect shall have failed to qualify.” (By the way, that part of the Constitution was not written by dead white guys some 200 years ago; the 20th Amendment was ratified in 1933.)

If we find that Obama is not natural born, then the Constitution says Joe Biden shall be President until the President thing gets sorted out. Everything about that is horrible. Unfortunately, it is exactly what the Constitution says we shall do. It does not “suggest”; it says “shall.”

Are we to apply the Constitution only in cases where it is convenient to do so?

Those of us concerned about this, at least some of us, are not driven by keeping Obama out of office. Look, we’re talking President Biden. We’re talking disqualifying the first African-American to be elected President. We are talking Constitutional, existential crisis. Riots in the street, even civil war, maybe. This is a very bad situation.

But for all I know, there is a simple way to get past this. Perhaps some kind of retroactive redefinition of “natural born” that would handle Obama’s particular technicality. I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. I’m actually hoping someone knows a clean way out of this.

For all I know, the facts of this case could turn out to be wonderful: Barack Obama is indeed natural born and we all live happily ever after. But the facts are key here. If he is not natural born, we should not ignore that fact.

Unfortunately, the facts are not clear. Multiple witnesses say Obama was born outside the US, that his father was not a US citizen and his mother was a minor. If those are the facts, he was not “natural born” per the laws in place at the time. Other cases have advanced different arguments challenging Obama’s eligibility under the natural born citizen clause.

As much as we wish the bad thing to go away, the “evidence” brought forth to prove Obama’s natural born status is next to nonexistent, despite what you might have read or heard. Yes, there was a birth announcement in the Honolulu newspaper at the time. Yes, the state of Hawaii said his birth certificate has been verified. Yes, we’ve seen Obama’s birth certificate and it says he was born in Honolulu.

Each of these claims falls apart upon the slightest examination. For those of you tired of the subject, skip to my Conclusion. For anyone curious about the evidence presented to prove Obama’s natural born status, read on.

The Birth Announcement
A birth announcement in a newspaper means nothing. Although Michelle Malkin waxed a little snarky on this, “Did a fortuneteller place it in the paper knowing he would run for president?” it is fairly common to run such announcements for babies born outside the area of the announcement or even the US. Proud grandparents, for example, could have run the announcement just to let people know they are now grandparents.

The announcement is not exactly informative. It says “Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy, son. Aug 4.” That’s it. It ran on page B-6 of the August 13, 1961, edition of The Sunday Advertiser. It is not an official document of any kind and makes no claim of the location of his birth in any case. It announces a birth, period.

The “Verification”
Here is how the story was reported by KITV: “The state’s Department of Health director on Friday released a statement verifying the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama birth certificate.”

That looks pretty black and white — at first glance. And that is how it normally gets reported. But read it again and then the whole article. The above statement simply says the birth certificate is legitimate. The actual quote from the Department of Health director is

“I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai’i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai’i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

All they did was verify that Obama’s original birth certificate is on record. But that doesn’t tell us what we need to know. What we need to know is where he was born.

Surprisingly, Hawaii happens to issue birth certificates for babies born outside Hawaii. The Hawaiian law on that states:

Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.

The state of Hawaii did not say what was on the certificate and it won’t release a copy out of privacy considerations. The state of Hawaii simply verified that Obama has a birth certificate on record; it did not verify that he was born in Hawaii.

The released birth certificate
It is often claimed that Obama has already released his birth certificate. What we have is an online copy via the website FightTheSmears.com. There are several significant questions about this certificate.

• Did this really come from Obama? Is FightTheSmears an official conduit of information from Obama?


• How genuine is the document? Is it a Photoshopped or Microsoft Word fake, ala Dan Rather’s memo? (I am not a forensic documentarian, so I will remain silent here. Snopes says it isn’t a forgery.)


• The document itself says, “ANY ALTERATIONS INVALIDATE THIS CERTIFICATE” (emphasis original), and it has been altered by, at least, a redacted certificate number.


• Most importantly, rendering the previous points moot, this is not Obama’s original birth certificate (the “long form”) and thus does not tell us what we need to know. Even if totally genuine, it is not the document necessary to prove he was born in Hawaii.

As Joe the Farmer reported in the American Thinker, “Even the Hawaii Department of Home Lands does not accept a certified copy of a birth certificate as conclusive evidence for its homestead program. From its website:

In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.”

The essence of the complaint is that the “Certification of Live Birth” that is used by FightTheSmears, the Annenberg Political FactCheck and others does not have the same information as an original birth certificate, including location of birth.

Conclusion
The irony is that this would not take a protracted trial with tons of evidence and counter-evidence, examination and cross-examination, expert testimony from forensic anthropologists, or satellite imagery. All it should take is for Obama to authorize the release his original birth certificate, the “long form,” the one the state of Hawaii says it has on record.

That’s it; release the real certificate. If the “long form” birth certificate says Obama was born in the US, I think we are done.

Hurray!

But even if it doesn’t, we are not in Constitutional crisis or civil war just yet. Real lawyers could review the law and determine that Obama’s birth circumstances still meet the “natural born” criteria. Let’s get this issue out of the newspapers and the blogs and into a courtroom. A courtroom, you know, where facts and the law are dealt with in this country.

But if that doesn’t end it, we are still not in a crisis. Legislators could come up with some kind of retro-active legislation. I hear it’s been done before. Again, I’m not a lawyer, but it doesn’t seem hopeless.

Only if all of the above fail prior to January 20, 2009, would we be required to follow the constitutional remedy of installing President Biden.

I think this series of actions is what lawyers call due process and due diligence. That, in my mind, is what we should be doing rather than ignoring the entire matter because it is so unpleasant. We should also not be rope-a-doping the legal situation just to push the issue past January 20, 2009. Simply address the issue in a straightforward legal and Constitutional manner. That’s all I ask.

But please, do not tell us to deny the facts, ignore the Constitution and “shut up.” George Orwell reminded us that “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

Two plus two makes four. And the US President must be natural born.

Randall Hoven can be contacted at randall.hoven@gmail.com or via his website, kulak.worldbreak.com.

The Usurper’s New Clothes

The Usurper’s New Clothes
by Jayme Evans

Intro: Facts are so inconvenient to those brimming with intellectual dishonesty.

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” — Barry Goldwater

A favorite tactic of Communists, liberals, and others on the left is using peer-pressure-laced name-calling to try and marginalize those with whom they disagree. If they can successfully convince enough people that a particular viewpoint is held only by those on the fringes, as opposed to the mainstream, they believe they can successfully discredit that person as a crackpot.

They frequently brandish the labels Hitler, racist and extreme right-wing in their pathetic attempts to banish conservatives who believe in strict constitutional interpretations to the extremities of the political spectrum. But, no matter how many people in this country — or elsewhere — attack my efforts to protect and defend my Constitution, unless and until President-Elect Obama produces his original vault birth certificate for public scrutiny, he will be little more than a usurper; an illegitimate and impotent poseur. And no amount of name-calling, taunts, or questions of sanity, patriotism or intelligence will change that fact. Those tactics only work on the weak-minded and those without the courage of their convictions.

As Americans, we pledge our loyalty to our nation and its founding principles, not to the politicians who’ve destroyed it by abandoning those principles and certainly not to our bloated, collapsing behemoth of a bureaucracy. What I and thousands of other Americans are asking for is not irrational. It is not extreme. It is not a burden. It is a non-negotiable requirement of our Constitution and a prerequisite of any constitutionally elected president.

This is not some cuckoo effort that I am engaged in alone. There are over 150,000 petition signatures and over 60,000 individual letters addressed to the Supreme Court asking for Obama to disclose his vault birth certificate for examination, yet those who attack have done so while lacking complete factual honesty:

“Sorry, but you’re a sick person. It really bothers you that someone without your skin color could be president. Why didn’t you raise these same issues about John McCain, who was born in Panama? You really need to get control of yourself; get some professional help, quickly.”

# # #

“There may or may not be points worth considering in this article but either: a) they are so buried in extremist statements that you have to work really, really hard to dig them out, or b) this article is designed to appeal only to the “lunatic fringe.” In either case, it is a waste of time.”

# # #

“The person referenced should study history. I believe Canada is a fine country and would be very careful about being critical of its leaders. Evans sounds like he should be on FOX.”

# # #

The only context in which I have ever mentioned Obama’s skin color is in the context that he would be the nation’s first back president or to repeat those slurs uttered by other Democrats. The same issues have been raised about John McCain and he was declared by the US Senate to be a natural born US citizen. As for the last comment, although I am American and was criticizing an American politician, I’ll take it as a compliment.

Notwithstanding that one of the many cases against Obama was scheduled for conference on December 5th, mum’s the word in the mainstream media. Not one single syllable. Most who have covered any news of this controversy have given these lawsuits slim chances of succeeding, despite the simplicity of the legal remedy. And all have done so with an ounce of ridicule, such as in Slate Magazine’s “Change They Can Litigate.” In this patronizing attempt to discredit those suing, the author condescendingly refers to “proof of citizenship” (quotes his), lawsuits brought by a professional poker player (as if that matters), sit-ins (a right of all Americans championed by the left) and other attempts to marginalize the plaintiffs and their supporters by making them out as fringe kooks.

Joseph Farah’s WorldNetDaily is not a “fringe” site, but one of the fastest growing sites on the Internet with millions of viewers. One of the suits was brought by Phillip Berg, registered Democrat who also sued Bush over 9/11. Another was filed by Alan Keyes, a 2008 presidential candidate. Obama’s citizenship is only a tangential issue and no one is trying to overturn anything. All we want is proof he was born on US soil. Overturned elections are not a good thing for this country, but quite necessary in order to preserve the integrity of our constitution if Obama is indeed the usurper many believe he is.

Facts are so inconvenient to those brimming with intellectual dishonesty.

It’s rather amusing how those who believe in such drivel as alien abductions, anthropogenic global warming, the Second Gunman or 9/11 conspiracy nonsense involving Bush/Cheney and 4,000 Jews are so quick to condemn this effort as a few loonies with an ax to grind.

The story of Barack Obama’s quest for the presidency nicely parallels the Hans Christian Anderson classic The Emperor’s New Clothes. But in this modern-day version, the young boy who alerts the Emperor to his own nudity is permanently silenced by being dragged off and having his throat slit.

Never forget those who served, fought, and died during the battle of Pearl Harbor.

IN THE SHADOW OF NEMESIS

In the Shadow of Nemesis
by Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.

As this commentary is being written, the latest runaround in the judicial flimflam of “who lacks ‘standing’ to demand production of Barack Obama’s original Hawaiian birth certificate (if one actually exists)” has just taken place. According to a newspaper report, Hawaiian Judge Bert Ayabe has dismissed a suit filed by one Andy Martin, on the ground that Martin “does not have a direct and tangible interest in the vital statistic records being sought, namely the birth certificate of President Obama.”

Perhaps one may gauge the circumspection and even-handedness with which Ayabe approached the case by recalling that Barack Obama is not yet “the President of the United States,” only the ostensible “President elect” once removed (because he has been purportedly “elected” only by the voters, but not yet by the Electoral College as certified by the President of the Senate under the Twelfth Amendment). And the underlying issue in Martin’s suit is whether Obama is even constitutionally eligible to hold the Office of President. So Ayabe’s decision exhibits a rather strong undercurrent of question-begging and special pleading.

In a like vein, Ayabe ruled that Martin was not among the set of individuals to whom Hawaiian law grants a right to inspect birth certificates. Of course, the more important inquiry is whether the restraints Hawaiian law imposes generally on public inspection of the State’s records must yield to an implied cause of action under the Constitution of the United States for any American citizen to establish whether or not Barack Obama in particular is even “eligible to the Office of President” now that his status as a “natural born Citizen” has been (and is being repeatedly) challenged. [See Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and Article VI, Clause 2]

Worse yet, Ayabe scored Martin for failing to prove that “irreparable harm will occur if the records are not provided.” Perhaps neither Martin nor Ayabe has read my previous article, “Obama Must Stand Up Now or Step Down,” which outlines only some of the more obvious “irreparable harm” that must ensue if an usurper seizes control of the Presidency. But one would hope that a “judge” might have some independent familiarity with the Constitution sufficient to lead him on his own to the correct conclusion. For, as that article shows, substantial “irreparable harm” from such usurpation can be established beyond peradventure simply by reading the Constitution.

Not satisfied with this blunder, Ayabe ruled that Martin had provided “insufficient evidence to indicate that the public interest supports” disclosure of the supposed birth certificate. “There is a reasonable belief that the public would rather preserve confidentiality of vital health records,” Ayabe held. Although that “belief” might be arguably “reasonable” in the general case (yet not very persuasive even there), it is patently, even childishly, ridiculous in this particular case, where only the complete disclosure of the record (if such record exists) can answer the question of Obama’s eligibility, on which America’s future political stability may rise or fall. Can there be any public interest whatsoever in the “confidentiality of [a single] vital health record” relating to a single individual when such continued “confidentiality” plausibly threatens this whole country’s well being?!

So much for Martin’s lawsuit. It would be laughable if its result did not hammer another twisted judicial nail into America’s coffin. Martin’s suit, moreover, is not the last of its type that will be dismissed on purported “standing” grounds, because the judge-contrived rules of “standing” applicable to this situation are sufficiently illogical, non-scientific, and even anti-intellectual — that is, contrived from question-begging and ultimately undefinable, unverifiable, and unfalsifiable legalistic mumbo jumbo — that they can rationalize whatever result judges desire to reach, howsoever illogical, perverse, and even dangerous to the national interest it may be. And, particularly in this situation, judges will desperately desire to escape having to take upon themselves the responsibility for the political consequences — let alone the odium whipped up by Obama’s touts in the big media — that will flow from the courts’ declaring Obama ineligible for the Office of President. Which responsibility and vilification wily judges can craftily evade by denying that voters, electors, candidates, and various other would-be litigants have “standing” to challenge his eligibility. For then the judges can claim both that, on the one hand, they have no authority to declare Obama ineligible because no litigant has “standing” to demand such relief, and that, on the other hand, by dismissing the cases solely on “standing” grounds they have not declared him eligible, either. Perhaps when each judge publishes these rulings, the statue of Justice holding the sword and scales should be replaced in his courtroom with one of Pontius Pilate washing his hands.

Although this poltroonish judicial strategy has succeeded in some areas in the past, it will prove bootless, as well as myopic, in this case. The next steps in the process of selecting a President are: (i) for the Electoral College to vote, and then (ii) for Congress to count those votes. The Twelfth Amendment provides (in pertinent part) as follows:

The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President * * * ; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President * * * and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, * * * and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed * * * to the President of the Senate; — The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; — The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. * * *

The Amendment specifies no grounds, procedure, or standards on or by which any elector’s vote may be challenged for any cause, by either the Electors or Members of Congress. But Congress has enacted a statute that partially addresses this matter:

Congress shall be in session on the sixth day of January succeeding every meeting of the electors. The Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the Hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of 1 o’clock in the afternoon on that day, and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer. Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alphabetical order of the States * * * ; and said tellers, having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two Houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted * * *, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the vote, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected President and Vice President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the Journals of the two Houses. Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified * * * from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. * * * [Title 3, United States Code, Section 15 (emphasis added)]

Even if this legislation is itself a constitutional implementation of the Twelfth Amendment under the Necessary and Proper Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 18), it does not purport to provide for, let alone guarantee, a correct result:

First, without an objection “signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives” no inquiry at all can go forward. Yet the mere absence of an objection — particularly without any explanation — cannot preclude the possibility that an Elector’s vote ought to be the subject of an objection and may prove on examination to be objectionable. Indeed, in these times, the very absence of an objection may indicate only that “the good old boys” in Congress — Democrats certainly, and Republicans most likely, too — have “cut a deal” among themselves behind the scenes in order to suppress an investigation the inevitable and unavoidable results of which would demonstrate the utter bankruptcy, if not criminality, of the present electoral process — in that an individual possibly not “eligible to the Office of President” and his handlers may have managed to bamboozle, bribe, blackmail, or otherwise subvert, suborn, or silence both of the “two” major political parties, the big media, the pundits, and every public official with civil or criminal jurisdiction over elections throughout both the General Government and the States.

Second, although a correct result requires a complete inquiry into an objection, with appropriate findings of fact and law supported by competent evidence, the statute merely requires “a decision” each from the Senate and the House of Representatives. On what basis and with what formality and content these “decision[s]” are to be made the statute does not specify. For instance, are the Senate and the House to hold hearings, to and at which witnesses will be subpoenaed and documents will be required to be produced for inspection and analysis? What rules of evidence will apply at these hearings? Who will have the ultimate burden of proof? What will be the standard of proof — a preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing evidence, or evidence beyond a reasonable doubt? The queries are legion, the answers unknown.

Yet the Constitution demands that, if such an inquiry is held, it should arrive at the correct conclusion with sufficient evidence in support. After all, the question of Obama’s eligibility vel non is not within the discretion of Congress to skirt or to decide as its Members may deem politically or personally expedient. Even by unanimous vote, Congress cannot constitutionally dispense with the requirement that Obama must be “a natural born Citizen,” by simply assuming that he is such, or by accepting something other than what lawyers call “the best evidence” (in this case, his supposed original Hawaiian birth certificate, as opposed to some purported “certification of live birth” computer-generated only decades later).

Therefore, if no objection at all is made to any Elector’s vote for Obama — or if no objection to an Elector’s vote on the specific basis that Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” (and therefore the Elector cannot constitutionally vote for him) is allowed — or if such an objection is allowed, but no searching and complete inquiry, or no inquiry at all, is had — or if partisan Senators and Representatives jury rig “decision[s]” that whitewash Obama on the facts or the law — or some other gross irregularities appear in the process — then thereafter the matter cannot be said to have been settled to a constitutional sufficiency. Congress simply cannot “waive,” or simply flub, the Constitution’s eligibility requirement “to the Office of President” by inaction, or incompetent action, or collusive action

In sum, if the statute does not guarantee (within human competence) that a correct answer to the question be had, then it cannot be deemed to be the exclusive remedy in the premises if (as will be discussed below) a better remedy is available. Moreover, even if the statute is employed to hear and decide challenges to Obama’s eligibility, the resulting “decision[s]” must provide assurances to a moral certainty that the correct answer has indeed been obtained in both fact and law — otherwise, further inquiry needs to be had in other fora. For the consequences of an incorrect answer on the ultimate issue, later exposed as such, are far too serious to allow for any lesser degree of surety. Never were the stakes from a game of “truth or consequences” higher than they are now.

Assume, however, that no inquiry, or only a perfunctory inquiry, or only an obviously tainted inquiry takes place at the stage of counting the Electors’ votes. Is the issue then forever foreclosed? Not at all. For a extensive class of litigants who absolutely do have “standing” to challenge Obama’s eligibility will come into existence, and demand relief as a matter of undeniable constitutional right and practical necessity, as soon as Obama’s Department of Justice attempts to enforce through criminal prosecutions some of the controversial legislation that the new Congress will enact and Obama will sign — such as statutes aimed at stripping common Americans of the firearms to which (in Obama’s derisive terminology) they “cling.”

For example, in a criminal prosecution under a new statute that reinstates the Clinton “assault-weapons ban” (or some equally obnoxious affront to Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 and the Second Amendment), the defendant will undeniably have “standing” to challenge the indictment on the grounds that no statute imposing such a ban even exists, because the original “Bill which * * * passed the House of Representatives and the Senate” was never “presented to the President of the United States”, and therefore could never “become a Law,” inasmuch as the supposed “President,” Barack Obama, being constitutionally ineligible for that office, was then and remains thereafter nothing but an usurper. [See Article I, Section 7, Clause 2 and Article II, Section 1, 4]

Plainly, a criminal trial arising under a supposed law of the United States is a “Case” to which “the judicial Power [of the United States] shall extend”; and the defense as well will raise a specific issue “arising under th[e] Constitution, [and] the Laws of the United States.” [Article III, Section 2, Clause 1] The defendant will be suffering serious “injury in fact:” namely, a criminal indictment and a compulsory trial, with the possibility of a conviction, imprisonment, and, if the infraction is called a “felony,” the forfeiture of many civil rights even after his release from incarceration. The prosecutor on one side and the defendant on the other will be adversaries espousing diametrically opposed and irreconcilable positions — so the “Case” cannot be deemed in any way collusive. The purported statute’s invalidity by virtue of its legal nonexistence will be “ripe” for decision, because the statute is the basis for the indictment, and its invalidity the foundation of the defense to the charge. And, unless and until the prosecutor importunes the court to dismiss the indictment with prejudice, the issue of the putative statute’s legal nonexistence and inapplicability to the defendant will be anything but moot.

In addition, the entire matter certainly does not raise a nonjusticiable “political question.” As Chief Justice John Marshall explained, “[t]he province of the court is, solely, to decide on the rights of individuals, not to inquire how the executive, or executive officers, perform duties in which they have a discretion. Questions in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive can never be made in this court.” [Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 170 (1803)] That definition excludes the hypothetical criminal case under consideration here:

First, “the rights of individuals” will most assuredly and palpably be involved: namely, the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law. [Amendment V]

Second, the question at issue will not be “political,” in the sense that it asks “how the executive, or executive officers perform duties in which they have a discretion.” Rather, the question will be whether Obama is or even could be “the executive” at all. Self-evidently, Barack Obama (or anyone else, for that matter) can enjoy no “discretion” to pretend to be the President if he is not even eligible for that office in the first place.

Third, the question at issue will not have been “by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive.” It is not for Obama (or anyone else in his position) unilaterally to determine that he is eligible for the Office of President, with everyone else in the country required to take his unsubstantiated word for it. “[T]he constitution and laws” do not extend to an usurper a license to perpetuate his usurpation simply by denying — indeed, falsely denying — that he is such. And if Obama honestly believes that he can prove his eligibility to We the People’s reasonable satisfaction, the Constitution actually requires him to do so when challenged: For the President must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” [Article II, Section 3] “Th[e] Constitution * * * shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” [Article VI, Clause 2] The Constitution declares that “[n]o Person except a natural born Citizen * * * shall be eligible to the Office of President.” [Article II, Section 1, Clause 4] And if the latter provision is to “be faithfully executed” by Obama as “President,” and the objective evidence necessary for that execution is in Obama’s own hands or subject to his control, then Obama, as the “President” whom he claims to be, must bring forth that evidence sine die in order to fulfill the very duty that he has taken an “Oath or Affirmation” to “faithfully execute.” [Article II, Section 1, Clause 7]

Fourth, (as explained above) the Twelfth Amendment and the relevant Congressional statute purporting to implement it do not render the question closed (and therefore arguably “political”) — unless Congress has actually performed a constitutionally sufficient inquiry, based upon all of the available evidence, that is at least as searching, thorough, and politically neutral as might be conducted in a proper court of law by actual adversaries.

Fifth, notwithstanding whatever may have happened when the Electors’ votes were counted, thereafter the political branches of the General Government have affirmatively committed this issue to the final determination of the courts. The hypothetical “assault-weapons” statute was enacted by Congress and signed by Obama, with the intention that it be enforced through criminal prosecutions. The statute’s enforcement is actually before the court, at the insistence of the Legislative and Executive Branches. The statute’s constitutionality is being challenged by an individual directly injured through its application to him. “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” [Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 178 (1803)] And if there is no true “President”, because Obama is not “eligible to the Office of President”, then the statute is not simply “unconstitutional” but even is nonexistent, and the indictment an absolute nullity.

Sixth, the question of whether Obama is “eligible to the Office of President” is eminently within the jurisdiction, competence, experience, and workaday procedures of the judiciary to answer. Courts are thoroughly familiar with how to subpoena witnesses, compel the production of documents, establish the authenticity of documents through objective forensic analyses and the testimony of disinterested experts, and otherwise ascertain facts through application of the rules of evidence in adversarial litigation. Conversely, this is not what ordinary voters or Electors do, or are competent to do. And if it may be what the Constitution authorizes Congress to do in some circumstances, as hypothesized in this situation Congress has not done and will not do so to a constitutionally sufficient degree.

Moreover, Congress cannot perform a simulacrum of this procedure by “remov[ing Obama] from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” [Article II, Section IV] For, if he is not “eligible to the Office of President” at all, then Obama is not “the President,” and therefore cannot be removed from an office that he does not, and cannot, even occupy — and has never occupied. In addition, even if “Impeachment” of a plain usurper were constitutionally possible, Congress could not “waive” its duty in that regard, do nothing, and collude with the pretender in order to enable him to continue his imposture indefinitely.

Seventh, the defendant in this hypothetical criminal prosecution can invoke the Sixth Amendment: namely, “In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right * * * to have compulsory process for obtaining Witnesses in his favor * * *.” Presumably, a properly represented defendant would subpoena Obama himself as the indispensable witness, requiring him to bring into court whatever records were in his possession or subject to his control that in any way evidenced, related to, or referred to the time, place, and circumstances of his birth, or to his citizenship, application for citizenship, renunciation of citizenship, or oath of allegiance in or to any country. This would include the original of his supposed Hawaiian birth certificate; every subsequent Hawaiian “certification of live birth” or like document created by public authorities; every other “birth certificate” or equivalent document whenever, wherever, and by whomever generated in the name of “Barack Obama” or any of his several other names; every document submitted to an educational institution that contained information or representations concerning his place of birth or citizenship; and so on. In the interest of expediting the process, the custodians of records in Hawaii would also be subpoenaed to testify and to produce all relevant documents subject to their control. To be sure, Obama himself might invoke a privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment as the grounds for refusing to testify or to disgorge inculpatory papers. But custodians of public records in Hawaii or elsewhere throughout the United States have no such privilege. And no Hawaiian or other law of the States or the General Government purporting to make those records “confidential” can frustrate the Sixth Amendment.

So much for the legalities of the situation. Personally, I find this whole controversy — although it is of great constitutional significance — to be a monumental distraction from what is desperately needed for this country’s security. The problems now confronting America cannot be solved simply by ensconcing in the President’s chair one charismatic “Leader” as opposed to another — be he Barack Obama or the Archangel Michael (neither of whom, absent a proper birth certificate, is “eligible to the Office of President”). For the Leader Principle at the very top demands the Follower Principle all the way down to the bottom. And both are anathema and inimical to the Constitution of the United States — especially the latter, because a nation of self-governing individuals cannot be a nation of blind, bleating followers.

Intoxication with the Leader Principle over many decades has led America, staggering and slipping on her own political vomit, to this sorry pass. Even more than the drinkers, though, the purveyors of the political liquor are now going to pay the price with an industrial-strength hangover. They have, as it were, “bet the farm” on Obama — either oblivious to the problem that he may not be “eligible to the Office of President” at all, or confident that they are so powerful (and the American people such dopes, dupes, and cowards) that nothing will be done even if the truth should come out. But no one is that powerful. So, however this case turns out, the Establishment will suffer a reverse from which it likely can never recover.

If the courts finally do their duty, and Obama is exposed as an usurper, the legitimacy of the rest of the political system will be eviscerated (and the legitimacy of even the courts will be in doubt, because their intervention was so reluctant and tardy). Whereas, if the courts cover up the matter in case after case on spurious grounds, incarcerating one after another American on the trumped-up charges of an usurper — and they will have to keep up the pretense in case after case if the whole house of cards is not to collapse — the legitimacy of the entire political system will utterly evaporate. (To be sure, Obama’s Department of Justice could refrain from prosecuting anyone under new statutes; but then all of that legislation would become unenforceable.) In any case, the only institutions of government that will escape condemnation will be “the Militia of the several States”, because they will still not be in existence (unless Americans show a great deal more enthusiasm for the idea of revitalizing the Militia than they have to date) and therefore cannot be discredited.

What will be the necessary consequence of the exposure of America’s political system as illegitimate in its entirety? Power will replace law. As Mao Tse-tung opined, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. And, with an usurper posing as “President,” someday soon someone will prove that aphorism true here.

One scenario will suffice: On some Monday not so far in the future, “President” Obama meets with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to announce that “Operation Sandblaster,” for a massive nuclear attack on Iran’s supposed “weapons of mass destruction," will be launched on the coming Friday. The Joint Chiefs remonstrate, pointing out that such aggression will trigger retaliation by Russia and China, almost surely plunging the whole world into a thermonuclear World War III. “President” Obama, however, is adamant, and instructs the Joint Chiefs to have the necessary orders for “Sandblaster” — or their resignations — on his desk by Wednesday morning. Knowing that, if they resign, “President” Obama will simply appoint some unprincipled uniformed “yes men” to carry out his plan, the Joint Chiefs immediately order covert break-ins around the country to obtain his original birth certificate and other material evidence relating to his ineligibility for the Office of President. With these documents in hand, on Wednesday morning, accompanied by a contingent of heavily armed Marines, the Joint Chiefs confront “President” Obama with the evidence, arrest him as an usurper and all the Members of Congress as his co-conspirators, and appoint themselves a Military Commission to function as a “caretaker government” during the ensuing “national emergency.”

So, at that point, because the courts did not act, and Congress did not act, and We the People did not act, the Praetorians will see fit to act. And even if the Military Commission eventually returns power to civilians, the precedent will be set in steel for “the Latin American solution” — government by junta. That, surely, would be “change we can believe in” — with a capital “C.”

Not likely? If not, why not? If one man can get away with usurping the Presidency of the United States, even as the rest of the General Government, the States, and the people look the other way while mouthing legalistic mumbo jumbo to rationalize their inaction, why cannot a few men — backed up by the Armed Forces — imagine themselves justified in overthrowing and supplanting him in order to forefend a national calamity? Why cannot the bitter weeds of the fall of the Roman Republic be transplanted from the banks of the Tiber to the shores of the Potomac when the conditions conducive to their growth appear? No patriot — no reasonable American of any political persuasion — may want this to happen. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

So, what now? The simple solution, if Barack Obama believes that he truly is “eligible to the Office of President,” is for him to repair to Hawaii in a burst of publicity and make his original birth certificate available for examination by each and every unbiased forensic document analyst who cares to scrutinize it. And if, on the other hand, he already knows that he is ineligible, he should step aside gracefully. Now, before it is too late.

He has no other choice, because events will give him none. When one walks in the cold shadow of Nemesis, hubris is not enough of a cloak.

Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).
© 2008 Edwin Vieira, Jr. — All Rights Reserve