ScottF

Arpaio: Obama Birth Record 'Definitely Fraudulent' - ABC News

Halo

SloMotion

... what I don't understand is if it's considered acceptable for Obama to provide an (allegedly) tampered-with electronic file of his long-form birth certificate in response to requests for verification, why doesn't Romney provide the same type of proof in response to requests for his tax returns?

I don't understand all this stuff, they're all just nothing more then a bunch fricken' liars & millionaires fighting over control of the country ...

Srgt. Hulka

Because the Constitution doesn't require showing tax returns as a pre-requisite for being President of the United States...It does, however, require proof that a person is a natural born citizen of the United States.

jcp026

If we had tax returns when the Constitution was written it probably would.

Danno

That is quite prophetic.

SaintsBro

OK look, this is the "too long didn't read" thing about the birther thing, for me...the argument is that his mother flew to Kenya and gave birth to him there. OK, interesting argument, let's do that. I'm with you, let's go there.

People forget how difficult and how relatively rare air travel still was in those days. International flights really only started in the late 1950s a few years earlier. Do you know how many different flights she would have had to take to get from Hawaii to Kenya in 1961? Honolulu to California, California to the East Coast, the East Coast (refueling at Gander Bay, Canada) to London, London to maybe Cairo, Cairo to Nairobi. How much would that have cost? And while 8 months pregnant? It would have taken her AT LEAST 21 hours MINIMUM to do it, probably longer, up to two days if the flights weren't timed well, and would cost about $2000 or $13,000 in today's money. It's a fact -- you can look this stuff up about airline prices and routes in magazines of the era and whatnot, to see what things cost and how long it took. It's not conjecture.

And then you would be stuck having your baby in Africa rather than in a modern American hospital in Honolulu. Or you could go the other way around the world to get there — it’s about the same distance either way. Kenya and Hawaii are more or less on the opposite sides of the globe, almost as far apart as two places can be. Birthers act like she could just log into Orbitz and hop on a 747 and be there in Kenya a few hours, forgetting how different a 707 is from a 747, and how expensive and rare flying was in those days.

Flying was a luxury back then, not routine. Ever heard of the phrase "the jet set?" The phrase originated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and that's because flying and especially intercontinental jet travel at that time were for the super rich, the elite, not for starving students and their pregnant wives.

Do people realize what a production it was to buy international plane tickets from multiple international airlines, from a travel agent back then, with no Orbitz, no faxes, no email, nothing but phone and snail mail? You're not going to believe this if you're under 30, but credit cards were not really used over the phone very much back then, and not very many people had them, especially not starving exchange students. Then the tickets would have to be ordered, printed on the mainland, and mailed back to the travel agent in Honolulu. Yes it was possible for them to go, but really difficult and expensive.

And the theory is that she went to Kenya to meet Obama's parents, and then the Kenyans "wouldn't let her back on the plane to go home" because of her advanced pregnancy. Here is the problem with that. If she was that pregnant, 8 months pregnant, they certainly wouldn't have let her on the plane to begin with, back in America, for her to even get to Kenya. Pregnant women simply did not travel by plane in those days, they mostly didn't travel at ALL back then. This would have been against the advice of her doctors, and against all the mainstream medical science of the day, even just to GET her there. Women who were pregnant "stayed put" in those days, it would be considered a big production to get your 8 month pregnant wife in and out of a restaurant, let alone halfway around the world by plane. It was not like today, where pregnant women exercise, travel, drive, and do all sorts of things.

In those days you boarded a 707 by going up and down steps, those rolling stairway things. No extending walkways out to the plane, and no moving sidewalks in airports like today. Airports typically didn't even have wheelchairs in them back then, it was rare. You think an airline is going to let a pregnant lady walk across the tarmac and up and down 32 steps a bunch of times?

So that is my thing about the birther thing. The "Kenyan-birth" version of the story has some major flaws in it, that nobody has really addressed.

Halo

That's a good one SaintBro, didn't think about it like that....

I think the White House was stupid for even touching this issue late last year and early this year because if I were a democratic strategist, I would want Republicans and Conservatives to concentrate as much of their time on this issue, to their peril - as much time as humanly possible.

The birther thing is an EXTREME "cause" only adopted by a small percentage of extreme right conservative. Mainstream GOP and conservatives reject this issue and some feel it's embarrassing to their party. Most Conservatives let this all pan out hoping something squeezes out of it.

The birther issue was not, and will NEVER be, the deciding factor between Romney and Obama. It does distract a TON of time and resources from loud mouthed, poster waving conservatives who are obsessed with this issue - a lot of time they could spend it on more affective issues.

For the President, it's better that the "loud faction" of Conservatives are obsessed with the birth certificate than the actual job numbers and economy which, by the way, have been admirably deflected by the Obama campaign team with bait and switch chicken poop conspiracy theories tactics much like this.

If I were a democratic strategist, I would stimulate the heck out of this sheriff to waste a ton of time and money on the birth certificate thing, and further detract from the reality that the economy is bad and the current sitting president takes the blame whether it's fair or not.

Just my 2 cents.

homerj07

I think SaintsBro sums it up pretty darn well. If you want to hit him on the economy - ok. BUT the birther thing is somewhat ridiculous

ScottF

True.
What I love is that everyone gets a hard-on when a 'new' story breaks.

So, just to get this straight, a SHERIFF from Arizona has new proof. Is this the highest-ranking elected official still on this hunt? Was the PTA mom in South Dakota busy? How about a Boy Scout troop leader from Missouri?
Last Q- was the sheriff doing this on the tax-payer's dime or as a hobby? He has a history of misusing funds and resources, so...