Response to Gary Younge on the Obama bc Affair

My email response to Gary Younge, columnist in/for the Guardian UK national newspaper, on the occasion of his column of 3 August:

Dear Gary,

Re your Comment of today:

You're not being fair in this matter, as I indicated in a letter (unprinted) to the Guardian on their article of 27 July on the issue (copy of which, see below). Granted, you are aware that to dismiss 'birthers' - and by implication, anybody who is curious and questioning about this - is being "reckless". But "when proof is provided..." -

Not so. You haven't done your homework sufficiently in this matter. Otherwise you would have known that the document on FactCheck and Obama's site is, in the circumstances, obfuscatory, to the issue at hand. It is not proof of anything but a bureaucratic response. (If it's even accurate. See http://bogusbirthcertificate.blogsot.com)

Please look into this matter further. You will apparently be surprised at ALL of the suspicious aspects of it. Including the shooting to death of a person who had illegally accessed the passport files of Obama at the State Department - "in order to 'cauterize' the records of potentially embarrassing information" - and was helping the authorities with their inquiries, as the expression has it.

The quote above is from an investigation into this whole matter, a copy of which is carried at:
www.westernjournalism.com/?page_id=2697
I commend it to your attention. You need to know what sort of information is out there, to know the full extent of the case, and concern.

As for your put-down of the suspicion of the report of Obama's birth in a Honolulu newspaper - because his momma was anticipating he was going to run for president of the US someday, doncha know, hee hee, titter titter: please, Gary. Of COURSE his mother would do all she (and his maternal grandparents, living there in Hawaii) could to confer US citizenship on him, for his future's sake. This 'take' on the matter is, really, beneath you; although it is used by some to try to laugh this issue away.

As you indicate awareness of: It is not going to go away. He needs to face this music. Full stop.

FYI, I'm dealing with this issue on my blog - with a good dialogue with a responder - at:
kibitzer-truthseeker.blogspot.com. Our 'debate' covers most of the issues at hand.

I have basic respect for your perspectives, shared over the years in the pages of the Guardian. Please hold to the same high standards of journalism on this, far-from-laughable, matter.

Yours sincerely,

Stan Stanfield

P.S. And possibly - possibly - this whole aspect of the matter is moot anyway, if it turns out that the true and correct, fine-pointed, definitive definition of being a 'natural born citizen' requires both parents to have been US citizens. But I will leave that aspect of it to the legal experts.

P.P.S. And for the record: I may have been slightly in error in my letter, when I referred to the Certification of Live Birth (COLB) as having been available to any parents, even while living without the State of Hawaii, as long as they had had the State as their legal residence "for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child". That precise wording came into effect in 1982, as the investigation I have referred to herein attests to. But from other sources, I have read that that 'policy' applied at the time of Obama's birth as well, ie, that such a COLB could be issued for a child even if he/she were not actually born in the State. Interesting, that on such a fine line such a huge issue could hang...

******
And my letter to the Guardian followed; which I have previously posted on this blog.

A couple of further thoughts.

FactCheck: Hardly an independent, 'non-partisan' site. The Annenberg name & link goes back to Obama's time in Illinois, where they were associated on the board of at least one community-oriented association (Chicago Annenberg Challenge, of which Obama was Board Chairman and President). FactCheck.org killed the building issue around Obama's COLB in August of last year; just when - after Labor Day - "the swing voters would begin to pay attention to the presidential campaign". See the investigator's report referred to herein. (Also see: deathby1000papercuts.com, eg, on the Obama-Bill Ayers-Bernardine Dohrn-Michelle Obama links.) As to that report:

The Curious Case of Obama's Purloined Passport. Quote:

"It should be added that 'Obama's top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm that was cited in March ['08] for breaching sensitive files in the State Department's passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General's report released this past July [ie, '08].

'The security breach, first reported by the Washington Times and later confirmed by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, involved a contract employee of Brennan's firm, The Analysis Corp., which has earned millions of dollars providing intelligence-related consulting services to federal agencies and private companies.

'During a State Department briefing on March 21, 20008, McCormack confirmed that the contractor had accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, and that the inspector general had launched an investigation.

'Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to "cauterize" the records of potentially embarrassing information.

'"They looked at the McCain and Clinton files as well to create confusion," one knowledgeable source told Newsmax. "But this was basically an attempt to cauterize the Obama file."

'At the time of the breach, Brennan was working as an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign.

'"This individual's actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards," Brennan's company said in a statement sent to reporters after the passport breach was made public.

'The passport files include "personally identifiable information such as the applicant's name, gender, social security number, date and place of birth, and passport number," according to the inspector general report.

'The files may contain additional information including "original copies of the associated documents," the report added. Such documents include birth certificates, naturalization certificates, or oaths of allegiance for U.S.-born persons who adopted the citizenship of a foreign country as minors.["]

'The State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a 104-page report on the breach last July [ie, '08]. Although it is stamped "Sensitive but Unclassified," the report was heavily redacted in the version released to the public with page after page blacked out entirely.'"

This investigator's report - titled 'Clearing the Smoke on Obama's Eligibility: An Intelligence Investigator's June 10 Report' - gives reference here for this quoted section to:
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/brennan_passport_breach/2009/01/12/170430.html

This is all very murky stuff. There's even more; but this should do, for now, to indicate that a major investigation into this whole matter is warranted.

The Untouchables - where are you when we need you?

As I said, in part, in a post on a thread on Politico.com (under blog titled 'Reid hits "artificial controversy" of birthers' by Martin Kady):

"Why does all of this matter? Among other reasons, I can think of one very good one: Because Obama himself ran on a platform of the US returning to the rule of law. Without which, the country could be taken over by tyrants. From either side of the political aisle...

"The further down the rabbit hole one goes in trying to trace down the truth of this matter, the murkier it gets. Obama needs to level with the American people. Period. End of story. Or he, and we, will never hear the last of it.

"Transparency. That's the key."

If Obama and his judicial appointees play as fast and loose with the law as this matter heralds, and has been handled, we are in for a very rocky road. And I for one will not stand for it.

America has a higher destiny than this, to fulfil.

It's time - obviously - to be about it.