Frank Gaffney, Obama Truther

Neoconservative pundit Frank Gaffney, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense, has bid adieu to polite society with this column on "the Jihadist vote."

Another question yet to be resolved is whether Mr. Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States, a prerequisite pursuant to the U.S. Constitution. There is evidence Mr. Obama was born in Kenya rather than, as he claims, Hawaii.

What evidence? We have a newspaper announcement of Obama's birth in Hawai'i from 1961, and we have a Hawai'ian certificate of live birth. Obama did have Kenyan citizenship until he turned 21; as the son of Barack Obama, Sr, it was automatic. And it did not negate his American citizenship.

There is also a registration document for a school in Indonesia where the would-be president studied for four years, on which he was identified not only as a Muslim but as an Indonesian.

Here's the document. It does identify Obama as a Muslim and identifies Indonesia as his "nation of citizenship," but that's what his parents wrote down on their seven-year old son's school form. If Gaffney thinks this negates Obama's American citizenship, he doesn't understand the law.

If correct, the latter could give rise to another potential problem with respect to his eligibility to be president.

Completely false. The document lists Honolulu as Obama's "place and date of birth."

Curiously, Mr. Obama has, to date, failed to provide an authentic birth certificate which could clear up the matter.

False. I'll link it again. Unless Gaffney believes that the state of Hawai'i is forging documents for Obama, this is proof that he was born in Honolulu.

This is fever swamp, Vince Foster-was-murdered, Bush-blew-up-the-WTC stuff. Gaffney should be ashamed of himself for letting it go out under his name. Or perhaps he's auditioning for a slot on David Icke's next tour. There's more in Gaffney's column but none of it's going to get attention as long as he hitches his wagon to conspiracy theories. Maybe he'll get a slot on Hannity's America, but that's it.

UPDATE: Later in the column Gaffney cites Pennsylvania attorney Philip Berg, who's filed a frivolous lawsuit against Obama on this citizenship conspiracy theory. That would be this Philip Berg.

Now, it is time for world leaders to take the lesson learned from Iraq and issue a warrant for the arrest of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney; arrest them; take them to a neutral country; try them for the murder of over 2,800 people from more than 80 countries on 9/11/01 and, when found guilty, sentence them appropriately. Jurisdiction would be proper in any of the more than 80 countries whose citizens were murdered on 9/11.

I compared Gaffney's nonsense to 9/11 trutherism for a reason.

UPDATE II: This is pathetic: a Toledo station runs a "local hero"-type story on Berg, which puts legal documents from Hawai'i on equal footing with his fact-free claims. It's mind-boggling. On the one hand you have a government certificate that says Obama was born at 7:24 p.m. on 8/4/61 in Honolulu. On the other you have Berg's claim, from his lawsuit:

Obama's grandmother on his father's side, his half-brother and half-sister all claim Obama was born not in Hawaii but in Kenya.  Reports reflect that Obama's mother traveled to Kenya during her pregnancy; however, she was prevented from boarding a flight from Kenya to Hawaii at her late stage of pregnancy (which, apparently, was a normal restriction, to avoid births during a flight).

Notice the distinct lack of quotes and sources? It's because the "Obama's African family members claim he was born in Kenya" story is an internet myth. They have never claimed that. There is no such story. Go ahead and try to find it.