Yes I know I have gone a few weeks.  I’ve been sick.  Sue me.

Topping today’s blogs:  Is Obama even a US citizen? Are we coming close to electing the Illegal Alien in Chief?

It sounds like a joke, and initially I dismissed it as such, but the problem is the story has just enough legs to make it stick around, and the core issue it rubs against is a serious one:  Is Obama qualified to be the president?  Not by lack of leadership, but by nature of not being a US citizen?

At the heart of this, of course, is The US Constitution,  Article I section 3 and Article II section 1 specifically.  Those two areas deal with citizenship as a requirement for President as well as for the Senate.  Oh yes, the truth is that if Obama is not a citizen, natural born or otherwise, he would not be eligible for the Senate, though being a naturalized citizen for 9 years suffices for the Senate.  But only a natural born US citizen is eligible for the White House residency.

Laugh if you want, I think a reasonable question has been asked, and needs to be answered, one way or another.

While I don’t fully know where the question/rumour started from, the principle defense used by Obama was posted at Daily Kos, a hi res copy of a Hawaii Birth certificate, which if real, would end the debate.  The problem was that there are some questions about its validity.

Polarik at Townhall details them:

The Daily Kos blog has posted a JPG that allegedly is Barack Obama’s “Certificate of Birth.” From a detailed analysis of the image and the text, it looks like it was created by a graphics program, and is not a true copy of an original, certified document.

I’ve been working with computers, printers, and typewriters for over 20 years, and given a set of printed letters, I can discern what kind of device made them. Printer output is quite different from the text created by a graphics program, and even if a document looks “official,” it may not be.

Note:  You need to browse to the source site to see the examples.  The writer makes a compelling argument, most of which I have independently confirmed with other documents.

At the bottom of the JPG image, reading right from left, one can see following text:

OHSM 1.1 (Rev. 11/01) Laser     This copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding. [HRS 338-13(b), 338-19]

There are a lot of problems with this statement, foremost of which is that the text in this document were produced by a graphics program and not a laser print, or any other printer, for that matter.

If the letters were made by a laser printer, you would be able to see the background, the pattern, through the spaces of the letters.

When text is entered via a graphics program, the pattern cannot be seen without noticeable distortion. However, when text is entered with a computer printer or typewriter, you can clearly see the pattern below the letters.

The fuzzy outline is a dead giveaway that these letters were made by a graphics program. Also a dead giveaway is that the letters still retain a sharp outline. With printed or typed text, there is a clearly definable characteristic of a symmetrical shadow when the image is saved at a lower resolution,  that is, a more compressed JPG file.

…

You can also tell that this is an obvious Photochop by looking at the border patterns.

Looking at the corners of the darker green border, you can see that the border is discontinuous. In other words, the vertical border bars were made by drawing a long rectangle, copying that rectangle, and then overlaying each of them on either side.

…

OK…so where is the certification by the department?

Not only is there no department certification, there is also the absence of any watermark on the paper. Official state documents are supposed to have a watermark on the paper — like my certificate of birth — especially when that document is a very important one, like a certificate of birth.

A certified document must have a signature (or signatures) from individuals within the State’s Department of Health who are authorized to reproduce the document, and to certify that the document is genuine.

Nothing like that appears anywhere in this JPG.

There is more, but you get the idea.  Some of it is unimportant and clearly speculative, but some of it does bear some fruit.

Below are two thumbnails, linked to the hi res document dissected above and to a certified document from a reader which can be used for comparison.

Also consider this tidbit from Talk Show host Bryan suits:

“I have just received my State of Hawaii certified birth certificate for my 1964 debut on the planet earth. It looks….nothing like Obama’s. We’ve scanned it at 72dpi, 300dpi. Nuthin. We can’t make the emboss disappear. Also, we can’t make THE FOLDS disappear!! How did FightTheSmears do it?

I got curious when I compared his (with the 2007 date bleed) to my old beat-up1986 copy. then I went online on June 13 and ordered the thing. It got here yesterday tri-folded in a state of hawaii envelope. I called the State and asked if I could get an unfolded copy. No dice.”

 So…what exactly are we to make of this?  What does it prove?

Not a damn thing.  This is not evidence of anything other than evidence that a question exists.

But the Obama campaign is stonewalling behind the low res copy of the above document, and that is not helping the questions die down.  They seem to suffer from the same disease as John Kerry’s campaign did in 2004:  Document shyness.

Kerry has to this day not released his military records, and I personally still believe the DD Form 214 he had on his web site was a fake.  I detailed that a long time ago.  There were several discrepancies as to how it was produced and the information it contained.

I won’t say that this will hurt Obama necessarily, but as he is already under the gun for not being qualified by ability for the job, it will not help matters to duck whether he is qualified constitutionally.

All he has to do is order up a fresh one from Hawaii and present it for display.  Boom, end of story.

So yea, I consider this an open issue, until he closes it.  But not a serious one, at least not at this stage.

Maybe this is just a last ditch trick by Hillary to disqualify him.

For more on this go to:

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12944.htm

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12932.htm

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12939.htm

The original Daily Kos Story

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/12/11012/6168/320/534616

Allahpundit makes note of it:

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/10/obamas-panama/

…then dismisses it:

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/27/st-petersburg-times-sort-of-verifies-obamas-birth-certificate/

 Trackposted to Hot Air, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, The Random Yak, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, Cao’s Blog, The Amboy Times, Beagle Scout - Support the No More Excuses Energy Act, Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, Nuke Gingrich, third world county, McCain Blogs, Woman Honor Thyself, DragonLady’s World, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Rosemary’s News and Ideas, The Pink Flamingo, , Nuke’s News, CORSARI D’ITALIA, Right Voices, Stageleft, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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