Wednesday, December 31, 2008

O-bot on the divorce decree

Yet another "Anonymous o-bot" has appeared on these pages to try to disrupt our discussions in response to a recent blog post:

Just curious, why would someone hire a PI, pay $1,000.00 (maybe more) to obtain a document that is a public record and has been there since 1964? Fee for this probably what? $20.00.

Also, the news report stated that they were able to find the Dunham/Obama divorce decree but the Dunham-Obama/Soetoro divorce decree could not be found (scrubbed), yet, it was posted here on line what? about a couple of weeks ago?

Can't believe whoever got the first one, could not have gotten the 2nd one at the same time. And, in the Dunham-Obama/Soetoro divorce decree, the place of birth for the children is not listed?

Why would the Indonesian school registration list Honolulu as where Obama was born yet divorce decree list Kenya? Doesn't make any sense. I seriously doubt if Stanley Ann Dunham was trying to "conspire to hide" anything when Obama was a child.

This character purports to be astounded that one thousand dollars was spent on some public record that has been available since 1964 for twenty dollars. Actually, one thousand dollars is nothing. At this point, the legal fees spent by Obama to hide his past are probably up in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the value of the volunteer labor and pro-bono legal work by those questioning Obama amounts to probably even more. There have been at least 4 major full page newspaper advertisements that have cost many tens of thousands of dollars. There have been tens of thousands of dollars of FEDEX charges and thousands upon thousands of certified mail expenses and regular postal expenses. A lot of money has been spent. Because Obama has steadily refused, for many months now, to produce a 10 dollar document.

In addition, one thousand dollars to get ahold of a potentially important document in a far-off place like Hawaii is not exhorbitant. 

There have been assorted reports that not all of these supposedly easily obtainable public documents are so easy to find. Were they "scrubbed"? Or are these just examples of an incompetent bureaucracy?

This o-bot seems to think that there are no mistakes on official documents and that we can trust all documents that purport to be official records. This o-bot seems to believe that it is impossible for anyone to perpetrate fraud when filling out official paperwork. Including a handwritten document from a Third World country over 3 decades old, in a foreign language. Of course, the o-bot would discount the recorded interview with the Kenyan paternal grandmother as being unrealible, since that is from the Third World. And the o-bot would discount the statements of the Kenyan Ambassador to the United States since this Ambassador comes from the Third World. And yet this o-bot wants us to believe that the school registration from Indonesia is completely reliable ? (only the Honolulu birth location, not the Muslim religion or the Indonesian citizenship, of course)  A bit of a double standard. And again, an anonymous o-bot cherry picking the evidence to find only material that supports the new "Messiah". 

Why might Obama's mother or his adopted father have written "Honolulu" as the birthplace on the Indonesian school registry? Why would an Indonesian official have written "Honolulu" as the birthplace on the Indonesian school registry? There are lots of potential reasons: 

(1) It could have been a mistake or the result of a misunderstanding. After all, Obama had been living in Honolulu, or might have been, before going to Indonesia. This is not particularly clear. The school official or Leo Soetoro might have just assumed it was true. After all this was not a super important document; just a school registration. 

(2) Stanley Ann Dunham registered the foreign births of her other two children in Hawaii, possibly to give them access to the rights and privileges of American citizenship or a connection with the US if they wanted it later. Why not Obama as well? 

After all, Dunham expressed disdain for the US, as did her parents, but still maintained a connection with the US when it was to her advantage, such as working for US foundations. This is not uncommon among those who style themselves as "radicals and revolutionaries". They work to attack the system, while still taking advantage of what the system has to offer. Anyone familiar with William Ayers? 

(3)  Perhaps Dunham was "hedging her bets" a bit. After all, did she want to burn her bridges with the US, where she had been raised and her parents lived ? She had no problem with abandoning Obama at a young vulnerable age and leaving him with his grandparents to raise. This was clearly far easier to do if Obama had some connection with the US. Maybe she had thought about this in the back of her mind for a while as a possibility.

(4) Perhaps Dunham did not want to go into a big long drawn-out discussion with a school official about being married to a Kenyan student when she was underage and giving birth in a foreign land and being upset with Islamic practices in that foreign land. Particularly if that school official was Muslim, like most school officials in Indonesia probably were and probably are. 

(5) Parents want to give their children every advantage. And they will often go to great extents to give them any potential advantage, including moving to foreign countries or even telling a white lie or two. Some parents will work two or three jobs to give their children advantages they did not have, like access to a college education. Some parents will turn into essentially chauffers, shuttling their children around to soccer practice, ballet, music lessons, club meetings, etc, completely abandoning any private lives they had for their children. 

And US citizenship or a connection with the US is perceived to be an advantage. How else does one explain "birth tourism" even, from advanced places like Korea? Is it so hard to believe that Stanley Ann Dunham, who seemed to have a sort of disdain for US rules but still expected to be able to exploit it, would try to retain any potential advantages a connection with the US might offer for her son? After all, Dunham did it for her other two foreign-born children.

(6) Perhaps Dunham had to present some sort of birth documents to the school in Indonesia. And explain why this purportedly Indonesian citizen (who would not be allowed to attend school unless he was an Indonesian citizen, under Indonesian law at that time; recall that he did not begin school until the age of 7 and a half, which is a bit old for a purportedly brilliant student) did not look particularly Indonesian. 

Is it so hard to believe that Dunham might have presented a Hawaiian Certification of Live Birth that showed that Obama was born in Honolulu, which she might have obtained easily to retain some sort of advantage for her son? She did this for her other two foreign-born children, after all. And is it that hard to believe that this document might show an incorrect birthplace for young Obama, since the attestation of only one relative was required at the time to obtain a Hawaiian COLB? Or that there was some fancy paperwork done at the Hawaiian Health Department associated with Obama's foreign birth to give him a COLB that had a Honolulu birth location? Which shows up on the long form vault copy, but not on the short form COLB? 

 Hawaiian law allows these birth records to be changed retroactively in a number of circumstances. And the Hawaiian law on birth records was particularly lax, clearly. 

So is it too hard to imagine that Dunham might have taken advantage of this? Particularly to give an advantage to her child, when she did it for two later foreign-born children as well? Why is that so hard to believe? 

(7) There are advantages to having multiple passports and associations with different jurisdictions. For example, Obama might have exploited his Indonesian connection to travel to Pakistan on an Indonesian passport. Might Dunham have wanted to develop and retain these connections with different countries for any potential advantages they offered, for herself and her children? 

Of course, this is all just speculation. But I think someone who cannot imagine why Obama's school registration in Indonesia should list his birth location as "Honolulu" if Obama was not born in Honolulu is not using their imagination. And is also willfully ignoring Obama's refusal to verify his Hawaiian birth with a long form birth certificate containing corroborating evidence.

I will point out that if we can trust all official records, then why are there 15-30 million illegal aliens in the US with forged papers? Can we trust the documents they present as their "official records"? What about the 911 hijackers that used forged documents? Could we trust the documents they presented as their "official records"?

In this sort of situation, we need corroborating evidence. Just like that Russian proverb that Ronald Reagan quoted, "trust, but verify".  Obama has given us reason enough to want to verify. So we are asking to be allowed to verify. That is all. Why should that upset you so much, little o-bot? 

Do you think if you tried this trick on the next policeman that pulls you over and asks for your license and registration that it would work? What if the policeman saw you shoving something under the seat as he approached. Do you think that would raise suspicions? You know, in many jurisdictions, if the police see you acting suspiciously, they are allowed to search your car; to investigate further.

Obama is acting suspiciously so we would like to investigate further. Do you have a problem with that?  And if you do, why is that?