2008 Presidential Elections

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In Some Nations, People Look to Obama as President of the World

President-elect Barack Obama is being embraced worldwide as a symbol of a new beginning for international relations.

Barack Obama's election on Tuesday set off international celebrations and ignited a fervor for the United States that has been unseen since the days immediately following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

To some observers, the international reaction has elevated America's president-elect to an unparalleled post: president of the world.

In Kenya, where Obama's father was born, a national holiday was declared on Thursday. In Indonesia, children danced at the school Obama attended when he was a young boy, embracing him as much for what he represents abroad as for the policies he advocates at home.


"People from all over Africa, especially in Kenya, where this is a holiday, are feeling that the most powerful person in the world does not have to be a white guy. That's a huge breakthrough for the United States and for humanity," said Walter Russell Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"This is the fall of the Berlin Wall times ten," Rama Yade, France's junior minister for human rights, told French radio. "On this morning, we all want to be American, so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes."

America's popularity abroad waned dramatically during the Bush administration, and some voters expressed hopes that in electing Obama, they could restore the country's image. The wave of good feelings since Tuesday night suggests that even before taking office, Obama has made substantial inroads.

"This may be the beginning of a new world. It marks the end of old elites and opens the door for new approaches worldwide," an Israeli man in his mid-50s said in Tel Aviv.

Foreign observers, who paid rapt attention during the long election season, are taking a personal stake in the outcome of a vote a world away. Expectations are high for the 47-year-old Obama, who will take over on January 20 amid a financial collapse and who will preside over two wars on his first day in office.

"The standing of everybody in the world is going to be affected by what President Obama does or doesn't do," said Mead, noting that all eyes will be looking to the new president for a way out of the global financial crisis.

In the Muslim world, the response has been mixed. A journalist with a pan-Arab news channel told FOX News that on election night, workers were going around the newsroom congratulating each other, as if Obama were their president-elect.

Iraqis have expressed skepticism that any rapid changes will come as a result of the election, but many see their fates ineluctably tied to Obama's foreign policy. "By God, the new American President Obama has promised to pull the troops out. This is in the best interest of the Iraqi people," said one Baghdadi.

Arab heads of state have been more circumspect, waiting to see whether Obama's Mideast policy will depart significantly from that of the Bush administration, and some newspapers in the Arab world have openly announced their distrust of the president-elect.

"There is no significant difference between Obama and McCain. They disagree only on the means to achieve America's chief goal, which is to rule for another hundred years," said an editorial in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors the Arab press.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad congratulated Obama Thursday for his win -- the first time an Iranian leader has welcomed an incoming president since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And some Iranians, speaking to FOX News, said they were excited by the prospect of the coming administration.

"I want to congratulate you on Barack Obama's victory that really turned a new chapter in the world's history -- that an African-American man, decent and intelligent, became president of the world," one Iranian said.

"This was done in America. Your nation has the credit for it."

Not all observers expect this world embrace to be long-lasting. "I think overseas, as at home, opinion over the longer term will depend on what he actually does," said John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Obama was issued an early challenge Wednesday, as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the deployment of short-range missiles near his country's border with Poland.

"Those who have issues with us are certainly not giving him a honeymoon," Bolton said of Russia's action, which may have been intended to send a cold word of welcome to Obama and to test his resolve.

Russian citizens, too, have been wary in their evaluation of the next president.

"I don't think he can really become the world political leader," said Tatyana Solomonova, a real estate agent in Moscow. "The fact that he's black can be an obstacle -- there's still a lot of racism in the world, in Europe and Russia too. I think he can take a leading role in the Western hemisphere, but not in this part of the world."

In Moscow Thursday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has a history of controversial remarks, was asked by a reporter about the prospect for U.S.-Russian relations after Berlusconi met with Medvedev.

Berlusconi responded by saying that the relative youth of Medvedev, 43, and Obama should make it easier for Moscow and Washington to work together.

Then he said, smiling: "I told the president that [Obama] has everything needed in order to reach deals with him: he's young, handsome and even tanned."

Italian news agencies said Berlusconi later defended his remark, calling the statement "a great compliment."

"Why are they taking it as something negative? ... If they have the vice of not having a sense of humor, worse for them," the ANSA news agency quoted him as saying.

But Italy's only black lawmaker, Jean-Leonard Touadi, called the comment embarrassing.

"In the United States, a joke like that wouldn't just be politically incorrect, but a great offense to this amazing example of integration, which it seems the Italian premier should take as an example," Touadi said.

For good or ill, all eyes are now on Obama.

"Not everybody is going to get what they want, but this is a moment of hope," said Mead, who added that Obama was sure to fall short of some expectations.

"If you look at Jesus Christ, he walked on water and fed the 5,000 and he ended up getting crucified, so I think it's not unlikely that President-elect Obama is gonna disappoint some people also."

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/1...resident-world/

[Aplomb]

http://michaelmedved.townhall.com/bl...#commentAnchor

Friday, November 07, 2008
CNN FINDS 26 MILLION MISSING VOTERS!
Posted by: Michael Medved at 2:22 AM Great, isn't it, that after two days CNN has finally admitted that the big talk of a huge turnout was a fraud and a mistake? American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate concludes that "voter turnout in Tuesday's election was the same in percentage terms as it was four years ago-- or at most has risen by less than 1 percent."

Remember the claims -- on their website as recently as Thursday afternoon-- that 148 million Americans had voted,even though they'd only managed to count some 122 million votes? Today (Thursday) on my radio show I begged, repeatedly for someone to explain the missing 26 million voters.

Now this American University Study declares all the prior nonsense inoperative and claims that only 126.5 million to 128.5 million actually voted, though even these dramatically reduced figues still seem to me inflated. If you add up the numbers cast for all Presidential candidates they don't come up to 126.5 million.... still several million below that number.

But for the sake of argument, let's use their numbers. The authors of the study blame the lower than expected turnout on a "downturn in the number and percentage of Republicans going to the polls" and thereby echo the claims of many bitter conservatives that GOP voters failed to show up for McCain the way they showed up for Bush.

But as John Adams said (and Ronald Reagan echoed), "facts are stubborn things." If the American University report is correct, and AT LEAST 126.5 million voters showed up, and if 28.7% of them said they were Republicans, then that means a turnout of at least 36,300,000 Republicans. And how many GOP voters showed up last time to support President Bush? With 122 million voters going ot the polls, and 30.0% of them self-identifying four years ago as Republicans, that means 36,600,000 Republican voters.

In other words, that makes for an insignificant difference of 300,000 fewer Republicans, in an election that Obama won by some 7,000,000.

Moreover, if you use the higher numer provided by American University, suggesting that 128.5 million voters cast their ballots this year, then that means that 36,880,000 Republicans participated-- an INCREASE of Republican voters of 280,000, and not a decline at all!

That would be amazing, given the evidence that many Americans switched their registration and orientation from GOP to Independent or Democrat during the frustrating second term of Bush. The numbers, in fact, suggest that a higher percentage of all those who consider themselves Republican turned out for McCain than showed up for George W. Bush. Even if the numbers of Republicans at the polls stayed virtually the same, there were fewer people in the population at large who identified as Republican, so fewer GOP'ers to draw from. That means that since McCain and Palin drew the same number of Republican voters from a smaller overall pool of Republicans, they generated at least as much enthusiasm as did President Bush four years ago.

Moreover, McCain (according to the Edison-Mitofsly standard exit polling used everywhere) got 90% of the Republican vote-- compared to Obama's 89% of the Democratic vote.

In other words, McCain lost because he lost independents by a sizable margin. He didn't blow the election because Republicans failed to turn out for the McCain-Palin ticket, or because they turned away in big numbers to some other candidate.

Those Republicans who threatened to stay home because of their distaste for McCain, or to vote for some fringe candidate joker, never materialized in substantial numbers -- in the same way that the disgruntled Hillary Democrats who threatened to stay home or vote for McCain didn't seem to materialize in any substantial numbers.

Conservatives who want a more ideologically pure party may not welcome the truth, nor will liberals who made ridiculous (and unsubstantiated claims) about an Obama "revolution" and a huge surge in turnout.

But hte facts are becoming unmistakable, undeniable: the turnout this time was virtually identical to 2004, with almost an identical percentage of self-identified Republicans (28.7% this time and 30.0% four years ago).

Independents, meanwhile, comprised some 40% of this year's electorate. McCain lost those independents decisively to Obama, while Bush won the independents against Kerry. That fight for the uncommitted, non-partisan voter determined the outcome of this year's election, and not any vagaries of GOP (or Democratic) turnout.
------------------------------------------------------

The piece from CNN's "Political Ticker" is linked here......

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Israel Warns Obama About Iran Talks

11/07/08

By VOA News

Israel's foreign minister says any U.S. talks with Iran may be seen as a sign of weakness.

Speaking on Israeli radio Thursday, Tzipi Livni offered her government's first official note of caution over Barack Obama's election as U.S. president. Mr. Obama said during the campaign he would be willing to hold talks with Iranian leaders.

Livni argues that dialogue at a time when, she says, Iran thinks the world has given up on sanctions, could be "problematic." She says she thinks President-elect Obama will not accept a nuclear Iran.

The outgoing U.S. administration of U.S. President George Bush has sought further sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but has been blocked by Russia, among others.

In a highly unusual move, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - one of Washington's harshest critics - congratulated Mr. Obama on his victory. He said he hopes the U.S. president-elect will change American policy, which he described as arrogant.

Iran is under three sets of international sanctions. It has been accused by several Western countries of seeking nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.

Israel, while never acknowledging a nuclear arsenal, is widely believed to hold the only such weapons in the Middle East. The government fears it could be the target of an attack by strongly anti-Israeli Iran.

http://www.payvand.com/news/08/nov/1064.html

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Color Blind

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=194983

[American Patriot]

Obama appoints advisers including Buffett

Was that Warren for money, or Jimmy to sing the new National Anthem "We are the World"?

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Well, its Warren for the money,
Jimmy for the show,
Rahm to get ready
Now go, SA, go...

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Townsend takes upside-down flag down

Written by Reporter1

Monday, 10 November 2008

DECATUR, Ind. (AP) — A tire store owner has removed the American flag he flew upside down in protest of Barack Obama’s election as president after complaints from his employees. Greg Townsend said he had planned to keep the flag outside his business inverted until Obama left office but took it down Friday morning. ‘‘My employees were all upset with me and I can’t replace my crew right now, I’m going on vacation,’’ he said. ‘‘About six applicants came in and said they’d go to work for me, but it’s pretty difficult to replace a crew when you’re leaving on vacation.’’ Townsend said he is a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam in 1969-70, at the time John McCain was a prisoner of war in Hanoi. ‘‘My feelings will never change,’’ he said of Obama. ‘‘I’ve had all kinds of veterans call me and come in personally and thank me for flying it upside down. I’m amazed.’’ Obama on Tuesday defeated McCain in Indiana by less than one percentage point to become the first Democrat to win the state’s electoral votes since 1964. Adams County, which includes Decatur, gave McCain 62 percent of its vote. Townsend pointed to the U.S. flag code, which says flying the flag upside down is acceptable ‘‘as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.’’ Tonya Miller, a worker at Townsend’s Tire Service, wasn’t bothered by the flag protest in the city of about 10,000 people some 20 miles southeast of Fort Wayne. ‘‘I think it makes a statement and I wish more people would have before Tuesday, because now I feel we’ll probably have him for eight years,’’ she said. However, another employee, David Ray, decided to quit. ‘‘I’ve got to sleep with myself at night and I’ve got kids that look up to me,’’ Ray said. ‘‘I’ve got to be their example. I don’t think that it’s right that if you don’t agree that you desecrate the flag.’’ http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/...view/131631/1/

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Greensboro store gets complaints for upside down flag

Posted: Nov. 6, 2008
GREENSBORO, N.C. — A Greensboro hardware store got complaints after flying the American flag upside down after the election.

Store manager Mike Naylor told the News & Record that employees at the Ace Hardware store turned the flag upside down to protest political unrest.

Naylor said Election Day and Democrat Barack Obama's win had some influence in the decision.

Store owner Darrell Chambers said he was off Wednesday and said it shouldn't have been done. Chambers says the display had nothing to do with the election and was just a protest of the economy.

Naylor later said the protest was not a political statement.

Store employees said they received angry phone calls. One customer, Louis Money, said the display was in poor taste.

The U.S. flag code says the flag should be displayed upside down only as a distress signal.

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/3906391/

[Ryan Ruck]

‘‘My employees were all upset with me and I can’t replace my crew right now, I’m going on vacation,’’ he said. ‘‘About six applicants came in and said they’d go to work for me, but it’s pretty difficult to replace a crew when you’re leaving on vacation.’’

I think that is a pretty good idea his current guys should be looking for new jobs right about now.

Townsend pointed to the U.S. flag code, which says flying the flag upside down is acceptable ‘‘as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.’’

Well, considering that Obama's tax plan could well put this guy out of business, I'd say that is a 100% legit flying of the flag under an "extreme danger to property".

[Aplomb]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c....column?page=1

Tolerance fails T-shirt test

John Kass

November 13, 2008

Catherine Vogt, 14, conducted an experiment in political tolerance at her Oak Park middle school and learned some valuable lessons. (Tribune photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo / November 12, 2008)


As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:


"McCain Girl."

"I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters," Catherine told us. "I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be."

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

"In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain," Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

"Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said," Catherine said.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

"He said, 'You should be crucifixed.' It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' " Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be "burned with her shirt on" for "being a filthy-rich Republican."

Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election. And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms. Yet Catherine refused to argue with her peers. She didn't want to jeopardize her experiment.

"I couldn't show people really what it was for. I really kind of wanted to laugh because they had no idea what I was doing," she said.

Only a few times did anyone say anything remotely positive about her McCain shirt. One girl pulled her aside in a corner, out of earshot of other students, and whispered, "I really like your shirt."


That's when you know America is truly supportive of diversity of opinion, when children must whisper for fear of being ostracized, heckled and crucifixed.

The next day, in part 2 of The Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment, she wore another T-shirt, this one with "Obama Girl" written in blue. And an amazing thing happened.

Catherine wasn't very stupid anymore. She grew brains.

"People liked my shirt. They said things like my brain had come back, and I had put the right shirt on today," Catherine said.


Some students accused her of playing both sides.

"A lot of people liked it. But some people told me I was a flip-flopper," she said. "They said, 'You can't make up your mind. You can't wear a McCain shirt one day and an Obama shirt the next day.' "

But she sure did, and she turned her journal into a report for her history teacher, earning Catherine extra credit. We asked the teacher, Norma Cassin-Pountney, whether it was ironic that Catherine would be subject to such intolerance from pro-Obama supporters in a community that prides itself on its liberal outlook.

"That's what we discussed," Cassin-Pountney said about the debate in the classroom when the experiment was revealed. "I said, here you are, promoting this person [Obama] that believes we are all equal and included, and look what you've done? The students were kind of like, 'Oh, yeah.' I think they got it."

Catherine never told us which candidate she would have voted for if she weren't an 8th grader. But she said she learned what it was like to be in the minority.

"Just being on the outside, how it felt, it was not fun at all," she said.

Don't ever feel as if you must conform, Catherine. Being on the outside isn't so bad. Trust me.

jskass@tribune.com

[Ryan Ruck]

Frightening...

"Four legs good, Two legs bad!"

[Aplomb]

I find this to be much more than just an irony, which it also certainly is. The writing is on the wall...and in print...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us...3apply.html?hp

For a Washington Job, Be Prepared to Tell All



Two of the 63 requests for personal and professional records from a questionnaire for applicants to the Obama administration. Some requests cover applicants’ spouses and grown children.

By JACKIE CALMES
Published: November 12, 2008

WASHINGTON — Want a top job in the Obama administration? Only pack rats need apply, preferably those not packing controversy.

A seven-page questionnaire being sent by the office of President-elect Barack Obama to those seeking cabinet and other high-ranking posts may be the most extensive — some say invasive — application ever.


The questionnaire includes 63 requests for personal and professional records, some covering applicants’ spouses and grown children as well, that are forcing job-seekers to rummage from basements to attics, in shoe boxes, diaries and computer archives to document both their achievements and missteps.


Only the smallest details are excluded; traffic tickets carrying fines of less than $50 need not be reported, the application says. Applicants are asked whether they or anyone in their family owns a gun. They must include any e-mail that might embarrass the president-elect, along with any blog posts and links to their Facebook pages.


The application also asks applicants to “please list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the Internet.”


The vetting process for executive branch jobs has been onerous for decades, with each incoming administration erecting new barriers in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the past, or the controversies of the present. It is typically updated to reflect technological change (there was no Facebook the last time a new president came to town).


But Mr. Obama has elevated the vetting even beyond what might have been expected, especially when it comes to applicants’ family members, in a reflection of his campaign rhetoric against lobbying and the back-scratching, self-serving ways of Washington.


“President-elect Obama made a commitment to change the way Washington does business, and the vetting process exemplifies that,” said Stephanie Cutter, chief spokeswoman for the Obama transition office.


Jobs with the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have served as lucrative incubators for Democratic and Republican administration officials. But those affiliations have become potentially toxic since the government seized both companies after years of financial irregularities that have stoked the economic crisis.


Not surprisingly, then, Question 18 of the Obama application asks whether “you, your spouse or any member of your immediate family” have been affiliated with Fannie, Freddie, American International Group, Washington Mutual and any other institution getting a government bailout.


Under “Domestic Help,” the questionnaire asks the immigration status of applicants’ housekeepers, nannies, chauffeurs and yard-workers, and whether applicants have paid the required taxes for household employees. (Those questions reflect controversies that tripped up President Bill Clinton’s first two nominees for attorney general in 1993.)


“Every transition is cumulative,” said Michael Berman, a lawyer and lobbyist who worked in the transitions of both Mr. Clinton and President Jimmy Carter. After reviewing the Obama application, Mr. Berman added, “I am very happy I am not seeking a job in the federal government.”


A former Clinton White House official who insisted on anonymity said in an e-mail message, “I believe it is considerably more detailed than we had to fill out in ’93.



Interesting that they want spouse information on everything — means lots of folks are going to have to list the very prominent — and controversial — companies that their spouses work/lobby for.”


The first question asks applicants not just for a résumé, but for every résumé and biographical statement issued by them or others for the past 10 years — a likely safeguard against résumé falsehoods, one Clinton administration veteran said.


Most information must cover at least the past decade, including the names of anyone applicants lived with; a chronological list of activities for which applicants were paid; real estate and loans over $10,000, and their terms, for applicants and spouses; net worth statements submitted for loans, and organization memberships — in particular, memberships in groups that have discriminated on the basis of race, sex, disability, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.


There are no time limits for some information, including liens, tax audits, lawsuits, legal charges, bankruptcies or arrests. Applicants must report all businesses with which they and their spouses have been affiliated or in which they have had a financial stake of more than 5 percent. All gifts over $50 that they and their spouses have received from anyone other than close friends or relatives must be identified.


Just in case the previous 62 questions do not ferret out any potential controversy, the 63rd is all-encompassing: “Please provide any other information, including information about other members of your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the president-elect.”


The answer could duplicate the response to Question 8: “Briefly describe the most controversial matters you have been involved with during the course of your career.”

For those who clear all the hurdles, the reward could be the job they wanted. But first there will be more forms, for security and ethics clearances from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Government Ethics.

[Aplomb]

Here's the questionnaire: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...stionnaire.pdf

[Malsua]

Obama couldn't pass his own test. What a joke this guy is.

[Aplomb]

Obama backs Kenyan Islamic Terror Regime

[Aplomb]

http://cusc.org/20081027.html


The 2008 Presidential Race Has Changed
MONDAY OCTOBER 27, 2008:
CAN THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION BE OVERRIDDEN DO BRING ABOUT SOCIALISM?

The Presidential election on Tuesday November 4, 2008 has now become a referendum on the U.S. Constitution.

With the evidence in, we have two choices:
(1) Constitutional Republic
or
(2) Socialism and/or Communism with judicial legislation by decree.

WHY?

On Monday, October 27, 2008 a recording was released from a WBEZ-FM interview of Mr. Barack Obama which took place on September 6, 2001. Mr. Obama's statements were, at best, damning of the United States Constitution. Since this interview, Mr. Obama has become a freshman U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate. LISTEN (opens in new window)




TRANSCRIPT OF BARACK OBAMA’S REMARKS FROM WBEZ-FM SEPTEMBER 6, 2001:

"If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court - I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples so that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order, and as long as I could pay for it, I'd be OK.

"But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and serve more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

"And to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical.

"It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. At least this has been interpreted and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way.

"That, generally, the Constitution is a general charter of negative liberties, it says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

"And that hasn't shifted and one of the one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and the activities on the ground that are able the actual coalitions of power through which you actually bring around redistributive change.

"And in some ways we're still suffering from that."

[Aplomb]

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/c...D3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

Blog House: Born in the USA? Yes, he was

Last update: December 3, 2008 - 7:00 PM


In the days since the election, Barack Obama has been busy filling his White House staff, selecting Cabinet members, working on plans to address the economy, phoning world leaders and meeting with governors from around the country. It appears as though he will be ready to take the reins as our 44th president immediately on Jan. 20, 2009.




Not so fast, senator. You haven't won anything yet -- and there's an Internet community dedicated to keep it from happening.


The Electoral College will vote on Dec. 15, and the U.S. Senate will count those votes Jan. 8. But several lawsuit filers want the U.S. Supreme Court to have a say. The litigants claim that Obama is constitutionally ineligible to be president. They question the authenticity of his Hawaii birth certificate, claiming that he was born in Kenya and that his mother falsified the document being shown to reporters. (No word on whether the newborn Obama was transported to Hawaii by black helicopter or by a spaceship piloted by ALF.)


As one might guess, the story isn't exactly rocking the mainstream media. But it is causing a wave (more of a ripple) on the Internet.


One of the pushers of the tale is Steve Marquis of Peoples Passion (1).


Obama, however, in an enigma, a man without a past who wears a mask, No one has ever seen even a copy of his birth certificate (the one with the hospital, city, doctor -- you know like the one we all have) His past is peppered with intrigue from the foreign money college loans, hidden college records, papers and associates and especially his lengthy involvement with the terrorist Ayres. He hasn't even made a full discloser of his medical records. His recent visits and connections with relatives who are communist organizers responsible for the bloody anti Christian takeover in Kenya are especially troubling. The constitution requires the President to be natural born to avoid possible personal entanglements in foreign lands. Who is Obama?


It is a very persuasive argument, if you ignore the factual errors, such as the part where no one has been seen the birth certificate. John Aravosis at AMERICAblog (2) sets the record straight.


One of the more interesting conspiracy theories about President-elect Obama is that he was secretly born in Africa, then apparently sneaked into the United States (in a banana crate?), and now is pretending to be a natural born American, born in Hawaii, when he's really a secret Muslim African who can't be president because the Constitution requires the president to have been born in the United States. Only problem? Obama's American birth certificate was made public long ago. Snopes has it. And Snopes also has the birth announcement from the local Hawaii paper back when Obama was born. Very sneaky of the Obamas to have a child in Africa, yet simultaneously place a birth announcement in the Hawaiian paper on the same day, nearly five decades ago -- in the pre-Internet era, no less -- on the off chance that their child might grow up to be president and require an American-born citizenship.

Fact Check (3) seems to think that the birth announcement that appeared in the Aug. 13, 1962, Honolulu Advertiser should settle the argument.


Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday. We suggest that those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat. The evidence is clear: Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A.


The tin-foil-hat-wearing crowd won't die that easily. Consider Raquel at Raquel Okyay (4):


We are embarking on a constitutional crisis, unheard of in our Nation's history, and the very fact that most if not all public institutions are burying this story, is to my knowledge unheard of as well. If the U.S. Supreme Court are prepared to hear at least one of the cases pending questioning the validity of Obama's American citizenship, than I think Americans should stop and listen. I... The last time I checked, I live in a free country, and I have the right to express my dissatisfaction with the way this year's president election unfolded. The way I see it, there is only one way the "Office of the President-Elect" can easily and decisively show that Obama is indeed a natural born citizen as defined by the U.S. Constitution, and that is to produce a true copy or original Birth Certificate. Thus far, this simple task has not been accomplished. Sit down and shut up? Never.


As far back as June, Amy Hollyfield at PoliFact (5) was shooting down these rumors, yet they just seemed to gain steam as an Obama win became inevitable and then a fact.


If this document is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud. They have done it with conspiring officials at the Hawaii Department of Health, the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Illinois Secretary of State's office, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois and many other government agencies. Sounds like a Vince Flynn novel.


Of course, she titled that post, "The Final Chapter." Just another example of the silly, cockeyed optimism of the reality-based community.


tobrien@startribune.com
SEE FOR YOURSELF WHERE TO FIND THE BLOGS

1 Peoples Passion • peoplespassions.org
2 AMERICAblog• americablog.com
3 Fact Check • factcheck.org
4 Raquel Okyay • raquelokyay.com
5 PoliFact • politifact.com
(Blogs cited here are excerpted but not edited.)

[Aplomb]

Jonathan Turley on msnbc regarding Constitutional crap, er, eligibility of Obama and then his ongoing disregard for the Constitution, er, eligibility of Hillary Clinton as well...