Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

Guest post by Patrick McKinnion

July

Around the start of July, “TexasDarlin” starts to question not just the COLB, but Sen. Obama’s citizenship. She has a guest author, “Judah Benjamin”, who “NoQuarter” claims is a “historian and former journalist”. “Judah Benjamin” later states this is not his real name, but he took it because the “original Judah Phillip Benjamin was the most complex case of Multiple Nationality and Allegiance I could think of.”. The original Judah P. Benjamin was a former U.S. Senator from Louisiana, and later Confederate Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, before exiling himself from the United States and settling in England.

Juah Benjamin’s initial claim is that Sen. Obama either has dual-citizenship (US/Kenya) though his father or lost his US citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian citizen. He starts to claim there may be a second certificate for a “Barry Soetoro” and that if he was adopted by his mother’s husband, then he lost his US citizenship. One does not lose their “native born” citizenship as a child, even if both parents renounced their US citizenship. There’s no record Stanley Ann Soetoro ever renounced her US citizenship, and even if Barack Obama had been adopted, he would have had to renounce his US citizenship as an adult to lose it.

Later he tries the argument is that someone who has by birth one than one citizenship is ineligible to be POTUS due to “divided loyalties”. Again, this argument is a load of tripe, since up until recently US law didn’t even recognize dual citizenship, and only started to because other countries do. Basically Mr. Benjamin states that the operative qualification to be President is Article II of the US Constitution

The argument he makes is that a dual citizen is the same as a naturalized citizen and is therefore NOT a “Natural Born Citizen”, even if they were born on US soil. He later compares three of the people who ran for President:

Sen. McCain – was born in the US Canal Zone and has possible Panamanian citizenship which was voided when he joined the US Navy. Gov. Richardson – was born in the US of Mexican parents and thus has duel US/Mexican citizenship. Quote: “Governor Richardson probably is Eligible to be President of Mexico but not POTUS” (does this kinda smack of racism to anyone other than me??) Sen. Obama – The smoking gun he claims here is from the “fight the smears” website, which cites the 14th amendment to prove Sen. Obama’s citizenship. (That post-Civil War amendment was originally used to first intended to secure rights for former slaves,)

Mr. Benjamin claims that either Sen. Obama is either “A UK and Colonies Subject”, a “Kenyan Citizen”, an “Indonesian Citizen”, or otherwise “born outside the United States, for example in Canada?” In any case, he believes that Sen. Obama, like Gov. Richardson, doesn’t meet the qualifications in Article II.

Isn’t it funny that the two half-white / half-minorities are the only ones that “Judah Benjamin” down-checks as “ineligible”

“Judah Benjamin” at this point starts making a laundry-list of demands, including “All Indonesian Identity Documents, Indonesian Adoption Papers and an Indonesian Passport”, “A Canadian Birth Certificate”, “All Documentation in the US, Indonesia and, possibly Canada, relative to Stanley Ann Dunham and Maya Kassandra Soetoro-Ng, because their Records are relevant to, and intimately connected with the Senator”, “A Public Appearance, on National TV, on Oath, before the Attorney General of the United States of America by Senator Barack Hussein Obama Jr”,

Let me point out something here. It doesn’t matter if Sen. Obama presents these things or not. Why? Because it will NEVER be enough Even if he were to do all these things, the PUMAs and their allies would just find something else more and more and more unreasonable to demand. That in a nutshell is what PUMA is trying to do here – set the bar higher and higher, make more and more unreasonable and outrageous remands, and then claim “proof” when they’re not met. It’s a very typical “moving the goalposts” tactic.

Meanwhile, “TexasDarlin” makes the sudden announcement that (gasp!) she has“personally come to the conclusion recently that Obama’s COLB was probably real, although its handling has been incredibly sloppy” She blames Obama and starts to hammer more on the supposed citizenship questions. She later has “Polarik” on as a guest blogger, with an article in which the title pretty much sums it up “OBAMA’S FAKE BIRTH CERTIFICATE, why I’m right and they’re wrong (V. 3)”. Obviously one can’t argue with scholarship like that, eh?

At this point, Dr. Neal Krawetz reviewed the work of the people who have analysied the COLBs and claimed they were fake. His conclusion? “Unfortunately, there is not much I can say to the people who believe this image has been manipulated, except “you’re wrong.” There is no indication of image manipulation.” Later on, Dr. Krawetz does a follow up, where he reveals not only that the “image experts” don’t know what they’re talking about, but goes into what he observed about “Ron Polarik”:

“Even though he says he is an expert, he focuses on pixel-based qualitative analysis rather than quantitative analysis and technical evaluation methods. Moreover, he uses no terms common to the field. This reminds me of the Wikipedia scandal where an author claimed to be a professor of theology, yet made it all up.”

He ends with “TexasDarlin should have never promoted the conspiracy when her “experts” were unverified. And upon learning of the error, she should have recanted the accusation rather than continue to promote a baseless conspiracy.”

Middle of July, “TexasDarlin” discusses a Congressional resolution declaring Sen. John McCain “a natural born citizen”. Why does this concern “TexasDarlin”?? Because it was introduced by Claire McCaskill, “a major Obama supporter in Congress” according to TexasDarlin. She also cites “Contrarian Commentary”, YET another right-wing blog. This one is by so-called “legendary Chicago muckraker” Andy Martin, who compared Obama to Hitler with such gems as:

“Hitler’s troubled family life and psyche? Adolph meet Barack. Philandering father Barack-from-Kenya impregnates impressionable girl from Kansas-Washington-Hawaii, most likely without benefit of clergy. Father moves on and leaves a wound in his son’s life. The son reverses field and receives “dreams from his father,” instead of nightmares. Fantasy reigns.”

Andy Martin also calls Sen. Obama’s father a “Rake”, and his mother “promiscuous”, sayng “Is this Obama’s idea of ‘family values?” and “Shameful values is more like it”

“TexasDarlin” brings in another so-called “Forensics Expert”, “TechDude”. His report started with the line “The following report was written for TD/NQ by Techdude, who hurried to complete it after his tires were slashed and a mutilated rabbit was found hanging by his front door.”. So who is this “TechDude”?? He was an anonymous “Tech Expert” on Atlas Shrugs. Israel Insider picts it up too. As for the rabbit, well we only have TechDude’s claim on this, and it was around the same time that the founder at PUMA PAC made a simular unproven claim about so-called death threats

Hmmmm……On one hand, we have a known expert on computer forensics saying the “Cult of the COLB” is wrong in their claims. On the other hand, we have now three anonymous bloggers who’s claims keep getting far-fetched.

“TexasDarlin” found an article in a Hawaiian paper (the Sunday Advertiser), dated 12 August 1961, stating “Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, a 6084 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, August 4.” She then said that “Barack Obama was likely born in Honolulu, the hospital still unknown”. At this point, “TexasDarlin” went mostly from arguing the COLB was a forgery, (though she still believes it was), to asking questions about his citizenship. Later “TexasDarlin” and “Judah Benjamin” claim that: “Barack Obama was adopted by Lolo Soetoro, his Indonesian step-father”and that “Barry Soetoro” (what they claim as Sen. Obams’s “real” name) “acquired Indonesian citizenship as a result of that adoption AND that he (Soetoro/Obama) may STILL hold Indonesian citizenship today.”

Later, “TexasDarlin” posts to “NoQuarter” is that it’s “solved – at least in (her) mind”. And the solution is a doozy, combining all the past info into one big fritatta of wingnut lunacy. She’s managed to claim that the COLB IS forged, his original name is Barry, there are at least three birth certificates, he has dual-citizenship though his father, Indonesian citizenship though Lolo Soetoro, (she manages to work in the famous “went to school as a Muslim” slur into that one as well), he changed his name at 18 to Barack, oh, and he STILL might have been born in Canada after all.

“Polarik” tries to defend his work to Dr. Neal Krawetz. And gets his rear handed to him publically as Dr. Krawetz expains why he’s wrong and ends with him telling “Polarik” that “Your theory and indisputable evidence is laughable and does not hold up to even a precursory glance.” Real professional 1, Internet “professional” zero.

As a result, July pulled to a close, in a spun cloud of bigger and bigger and more wild-assed speculation. It would be hysterical if it wasn’t so pathetic. Like a little kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar, the lie they spin grows bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder until it’s obvious the only people willing to believe it are the other little kids who want to believe it.

To follow this story further, see part 1, part 3, 4, 5 and 6, and Updates, at Yes to Democracy No to Puma.

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