Pew Poll: 39 Percent of Republicans Want More Coverage of Obama’s Citizenship

[...] Arti­cle: Pew Poll: 39 Per­cent of Repub­li­cans Want More Cov­er­age of Obama’s Cit­i­zen­ship — … Share and [...]

[...] plurality of Republicans would like to spend more time talking about Barack Obama’s birth certificate. That is, when they aren’t busy beating [...]

[...] 30 percent aren’t sure. Now, a new poll from the Pew Research Center has found that “a plurality, 39 percent, of self-identified Republicans” believe that there has been “too little” coverage of “allegations that [...]

I hope the media does cover it more – but cover it accurately and comprehensively. Part of the reason that the Obama birth “controversy” has been so persistent is that bogus “facts” and frivolous legal theories keep cropping up on anti-Obama sites without any balance from knowledgeable people with opposing viewpoints. Shining the light of day on these Obama conspiracy theories is the best way to debunk them for most people (although the most committed Obama haters of course will never listen to anything that doesn't support their theories, like Leo Donofrio and Orly Taitz).

There needs to be more coverage, but this time it needs to be accurate. Almost all of the MSM coverage so far has been inaccurate on both minor and major things. For instance, CNN recently just made something up, and the NYT has now echoed them.

Eventually, one of those MSM sources is going to “crack” and post a correction. And, when that happens it's going to set off a bit of a chain reaction and eventually someone in the MSM is going to write that – just as an example – Dave Weigel lied and that Alex Koppelman lied.

[...] The rest is here: The Washington Independent » Pew Poll: 39 Percent of Republicans … [...]

[...] [...]

I will agree that the MSM's coverage has not only been dismissive, but frequently wrong in how it mischaracterizes the issues and the facts being debated, both in terms of Hawaii law and procedure and the arguments over the meaning of “natural born Citizen.” (Probably because the MSM doesn't want to invest the time to go into a topic they believe is without merit to begin with.)

On the other hand, that doesn't mean the birthers are right. There are very solid – irrefutable – arguments in support of the position that, at the very least, any person who is a citizen at birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment is a “natural born Citizen” as our courts have understood that term throughout American history (and as our Founding Fathers likely understood the term). And, save for manufactured “doubts” about the veracity of Obama's COLB or the information listed on it, and blatant misrepresentations of Hawaii law, there is simply no reason to believe that the question of Obama's birthplace isn't settled.

The fact that the MSM has blown the opportunity to properly set the record straight doesn't mean the facts aren't perfectly clear.

And then, 24Ahead, prince of all the birfers, will get his own TV show — and women might want to have sex with him!

(If 24Ahead walks into a gym near you, hit the ground.)

[...] [...]

“For instance, CNN recently just made something up, and the NYT has now echoed them.”

Mover over Woodward, outta the way Bernstein – here comes the Two-Four with hard facts!!

Dude – are you Polarik's roommate?

Eventually, one of those MSM sources is going to “crack” and post a correction.

Maybe they'll realize they gave the crazy ass birthers way too much time to spread their lies on TV, and apologize for it.

And it's far more likely one of you crazy birthers will “crack” and do something violent. Pretty soon, I would guess.

[...] another 30 percent aren’t sure. Now, a new poll from the Pew Research Center has found that “a plurality, 39 percent, of self-identified Republicans” believe that there has been “too little” coverage of “allegations that President Obama was [...]

[...] 30 percent aren’t sure. Now, a new poll from the Pew Research Center has found that “a plurality, 39 percent, of self-identified Republicans” believe that there has been “too little” coverage of “allegations that [...]

Tuci's domestic partner.

lets face it, 24Ahead is definitely not the gym type. He's more into exercising his forearms while watching “girls gone wild” videos.

In what world has the media ever covered anything fairly, accurately, or in a balanced fashion?

a. Never
b. Not ever
c. Not from the beginning of time nor til the end
d. Na gah na ha en

Media is about people screaming and yelling and creating controversy and the sky is falling, from beginning to end. Birthers are a gold mine. Back in the 70s they had a show called “Real People,” where the proto-birthers were put on television, people like Spaceship Ruthie. This is the same deal, just like Sarah Palin, just like the militias-a chance for reality content that is cheap to produce, controversial within bounds, and diverts people from the real issues at hand. It serves many masters-it keeps the right focused away from the fact that their political representation is as lazy and pandering as they are intellectually slack and reactionary, and the left has less time to stew on the fact that Obama is reneging on his campaign promises with regards to torture, habeas corpus, wiretapping, war on scary furriners, economic regulation, corporate crime, mortgage cramdowns, stimulus, unemployment and on and on.

Point well taken about them media. I am hoping (perhaps naively), that the media will learn how to draw the line between harmless controversies like those you find in the supermarket checkout line and dangerous and insidious theories that undermine the very legitimacy of our government – which may enable some fool to justify his violent acts on the misguided notion that he acting to “save” his country from a “usurper.”

Look, the nutjobs will never be convinced. They're willing to believe anything that fits their preconceived notion that Obama is an “other.” We're going to have to live with those imbeciles whether we like it or not, and they're free to believe what they wish.

But we don't have to give them comfort in numbers. There are some people who, wanting to see themselves as fair and open-minded, are willing to listen to what the birthers have to say. Those who don't understand the law may be tempted to believe the birthers' extravagent and ridiculous claims that Obama couldn't be a “natural born Citizen” because his father wasn't a U.S. citizen. Or they may be willing to believe that Hawaii has not actually issued legally valid and sufficient documentation of Obama's birth in Hawaii. Or they may concede that Hawaii did issue Obama legally valid documentation of his birth, only to claim instead that Obama can lawfully have such a document issued which states he was born on Oahu even if he wasn't born there.

Open-minded but uninformed people are low-hanging fruit for the birthers, and if rational people don't provide them with the facts, some may get swept up in this idiotic hysteria.

David, it time it will be 39% of democrats and independents . By the time Obama's term is over if he hasn't been inpeached. All of America will need to jump in the shower to get the stench off from this administration. Even the media will be sick of this guy. He is just know good. Where were you born David.

Say hello to your leader, freak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rky03elvlU0

Tell you what, 24…here is a conservative radio program out of Phoenix with a conservative lawyer sitting in. He takes calls from listeners and rebukes every one of the arguments.

http://www.kfyi.com/cc-common/mediaplayer/playe…

My favorite…”Nothing will satisfy these people, the reason they're doing this is they hate Obama and has nothing to do with where he's born. And, nothing will ever satisfy them.”

Give a listen, 24…you'll find all your arguments are shot down BY A CONSERVATIVE anti-Obama republican. Not the liberal press. Not Obama supporters. Not someone who was bought off (as you will reach for). Just someone who knows and understands the LAW and knows Obama is an american citizen. But, of course, he must now be in on the conspiracy…since all that it takes to become a member of it is to disagree with you and Orly.

Uhh, you do realize I am not 24, right?

Obama is the best president this country has ever had. That being said, I beleive that most everyone who does not like him are just prejudice against him and needs to stay out of the way so America can grow as a country of real freedom.

Oh, yeah. There's a Lincoln worshiper's endorsement on “the best president.”

Well, if Barry Soetoro (operating currently under the alias of “Barack Hussein Obama II”) is to be judged by spending, or by arrogance, or by currency debauchment, or by the precipitation of a constitutional crisis (see Article II, Section 1) as “best,” then he's certainly some kind of superlative.

And when he's done, all that will remain of “real freedom” will be those fond memories his Ministry of Truth won't have sanitized away.

Hello, putzie.

http://rightsoup.com/new-obama-documentary-a-qu…

“Every day, in every day, Barry's perp-walk is getting closer and closer.”

Who benefits from propagating these lies? Are the believers so stupid that they forget that if this was true then John McCain, Hilary Clinton …would have had Obama removed from the primary campaign and bounced out of politics before any election.

This is just more GOP kicking their chained up dog, snickering as it strains against the chain. Gleefully waiting for it to break loose and tear someone apart, when they will throw up their hands and shout “who could have known…”

Wow, that's quite a “documentary” you have there, and quite a collection of your “4 experts”. Let's take a look at these 4 experts:

1. Orly Taitz is a real estate agent who got her degree in dentistry from a foreign country, and a law degree from an online correspondence school that is unaccredited (California is the only state in the country that lets unaccredited graduates pass the bar exam). She has never won a single case in her legal career. She has never argued a single case before any appellate court in the nation. She has no background in constitutional law although her entire argument is a constitutional one. Every single birther lawsuit she has filed has been tossed out of court.

2. Alan Keyes is on record as saying he believes the President of the United States is a Nazi. I'm sure the fact that he was the Republican candidate for Senate against Barack Obama in 2004, and was defeated by Obama by the largest margin of victory by any statewide candidate in the history of the state of Illinois, have nothing to do with his neutral, objective assessment of the issues.

3. Jerome Corsi is the guy who swift-boated John Kerry. He hates anyone who is a Democrat and makes millions of dollars by writing books talking about that. How this qualifies him as an “expert” is beyond me.

4. Janet Porter is a talk show host. Talk show hosts are not “experts”. Except, of course, in the crazy world of the people we all know to be: Birthers.

The question is not where he was born but whether he is, really, a “natural born citizen” as required by the Constitution. Read it, research it, ponder his father's legal status as British subject and realize that, as an offspring of a British subject, Obama CANNOT be a natural born citizen. Ergo, cannot be the President of the United States under current law. Maybe that's why his campaign has spent so much money preparing legal defense on this issue?

You want research? Here's some research:

The Constitution, Article II, Section 1, reads:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

The Supreme Court has obviously never specifically ruled on the meaning of “natural born Citizen” in a case involving presidential qualifications, because such a controversy has never been before the Court. This is not likely to change, since most citizens do not have the standing to bring the question before the court. So, at best, this is little more than a parlor game with historical interest, but it will not affect the fate of the current President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama II.

We start from the recognition that the Court has referred to the “natural born Citizen” clause in dicta on a number of occasions in cases involving citizenship (see below). That alone is suggestive of the fact that the Court views the relationship between citizenship laws and presidential eligibility as interrelated concepts.

The Court has acknowledged, as have we all, that the Constitution is silent on the meaning of “natural born Citizen.” “Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that,” noted the Court in Minor v. Happersett in 1875. So what did the Founding Fathers understand the term to mean, and how did courts in successive years understand it?

Birthers frequently claim that the Founding Fathers were very familiar with de Vattel's 1758 treaties, The Law of Nations. This is certainly true. Toward this end, they point to the following paragraph as guiding the Founders on the meaning of “natural born Citizen”:

§ 212. Of the citizens and natives.

The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.

There's a fundamental flaw with the theory that this understanding a “natural born citizen” (which was to de Vattel synonymous with citizenship by birth) guided the Founders on the meaning of “natural born Citizen”: at the time of the Constiutional Convention in 1787, de Vattel's work made no mention of “natural born citizen.” At that time, English translations of The Law of Nations used the original, untranslated French term indigenes, not “natural born citizens.” The latter term did not enter into English language translations until roughly 1797, a decade after the term first appeared in the Constitution.

But if de Vattel didn't influence the term, what did? As it turns out, the term “natural born subject” was part of English common law dating as far back as the fifteenth century. This term was understood to mean that all persons born in the monarch's realm (i.e. on English soil), were English subjects, with minor exceptions that we still recognize today, including children of foreign diplomats born in the realm.

Birthers may point to the stray claim here and there that the United States did not adopt English common law, but the evidence from everyday courts from the very start of the republic is overwhelmingly at odds with this assertion.

For example, even before the adoption of the Constution, the term “natural born citizen” was already in use in the United States. In 1786, the Massachusetts legislature naturalized a Michael Walsh, giving him all the rights of a “natural born citizen”:

An Act for Naturalizing Michael Walsh

February 7, 1786.

After the Constitution was adopted, courts recognized the common law heritage of the term “natural born citizen.” Here's an excerpt from the syllabus of an 1824 U.S. Supreme Court decision:

The statute of 11 and 1 Wm. III. c. 6., which is in force in Maryland, removes the common law disability of claiming title through an alien ancestor, but does not apply to a living alien ancestor, so as to create a title by heirship, where none would exist by the common law, if the ancestor were a natural born subject or citizen.

M'Creery's Lessee v. Somerville, 22 U.S. 354 (1824).

Or how about this passage from the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1829:

The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.

Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (1829).

In fact, the New York Court of Chancery spoke at great length about whether the use of the term “natural born Citizen” in the Constitution served to break the United States from common law tradition with regard to citizenship:

The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” &c. The only standard which the existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not. The position would be decisive in his favor that by the rule of common law, in force when the constitution was adopted, he is a citizen.

Moreover, the absence of any avowal or expression in the constitution, of a design to affect the existing law of the country on this subject, is conclusive against the existence of such design. It is inconceivable that the representatives of the thirteen sovereign states, assembled in convention for the purpose of framing a confederation and union for national purposes, should have intended to subvert the long established rule of law governing their constituents on a question of such great moment to them all, without solemnly providing for the change in the constitution; still more that they should have come to that conclusion without even once declaring their object.

Lynch v. Clarke, (N.Y. Chancery 1844) 1 Sandf. Ch. 583.

In fact, early courts had little trouble interpreting the meaning of “natural born Citizen” in the Constitution:

The 5th section of the 2d article provides, “that no person except a natural born citizen,” shall become president. A plain acknowledgment, that a man may become a citizen by birth, and that he may be born such.

Amy v. Smith, 11 Ky. 326, 340 (Ky. 1822).

It is very clear that these courts viewed natural born citizenship as the same as “citizenship by birth,” and not some subset thereof. They saw “natural born citizen” and naturalized citizen as mutually exclusive categories of citizens. And if a person fell into neither of these categories, he was an alien/foreigner:

In regard to the etymology, alien is derived directly from the Latin alienus, and has in common parlance the same signification — foreigner is a modern word, derived either mediately or directly from fores and origo; whenever properly used, it refers to the origin, and not to any present relation. One of the authorities cited, employs the expression, “a foreigner who has been naturalized, and has become a denizen.” It would be a solecism in language, to use the phrase “an alien who has been naturalized;” to be equalled only by the language employed in one of the Maryland statutes which has been referred to, which in express terms, calls foreigners who have been naturalized, “natural born subjects.”

Spratt v. Spratt, 26 U.S. 343 (1828).

There is abundant evidence to demonstrate that the founders adopted the common law meaning of “natural born Citizen,” and that the Fourteenth Amendment merely restated this law. The Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark in 1898 expounded at great length on the fact that the United States retained the common law, jus soli roots of “natural born citizen.” Although the dissent cited to de Vattel in opposition to this position, the best it could argue was that the United States should adopt jus sanguinis, it never claimed that this had been the law of the land in the United States.

Over the past century, the Supreme Court has evidently had little difficulty understanding “natural born citizen” as it is used in terms of presidential qualifications to mean nothing more than the opposite of naturalized citizen, and nothing more:

The distinction between citizenship by birth and citizenship by naturalization is clearly marked in the provisions of the Constitution, by which “no person, except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President;” and “the Congress shall have power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” Constitution, art. 2, sect. 1; art. 1, sect. 8.

Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, 101 (1884).

We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the “natural born” citizen is eligible to be President. Art. II, § 1.

Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1964).

Apart from the passing reference to the “natural born Citizen” in the Constitution's Art. II, § 1, cl. 5, we have, in the Civil Rights Act of April 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27, the first statutory recognition and concomitant formal definition of the citizenship status of the native born: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States . . . .” This, of course, found immediate expression in the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, with expansion to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . .”

Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 829 (1971).

There's simply no doubt on the question of where the Supreme Court would land if it had to decide head-on whether a person born on U.S. soil is a “natural born Citizen.”

Now, where's the research suggesting otherwise? The ball is in your court…

Leo Donofrio's positions are legal/historical, not conspiratorial. Obama and his apologists have utterly failed to refute Donofrio's claims.

Leo Donofrio is a coward. The reason no one refutes his claims is because he deletes opposing arguments when they're posted on his website. I've given him plenty of opportunity to address many of the facts I've raised on this board, and he's been too chicken to touch any of them.

When he's willing to engage in a fair debate without hiding behind the edit button, then we can debate the merits of his pseduo-legal blather.

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[...] to recent polling, a plurality of Republicans want the issue of Barack Obama’s citizenship to be [...]

[...] (Hat-tip to David Weigel.) [...]

[...] to David Weigel.) Posted by: Alex Koppelman on August 6, 2009 @ 10:35 am Filed under: All [...]

[...] (Hat-tip to David Weigel.) [...]