The nuts on the far right of the political spectrum are beginning to look increasingly unstable as they manufacture conspiracy theories about President Obama’s place of birth and whether or not he really is a citizen of the United States of American (one of the necessary requirements to become president). These nuts, led by bitter Alan Keyes who has been whipped politically by Obama, continue to advance useless speculation and waste time and resources pursuing ghosts.
Here is the transcript from Lou Dobbs’ CNN show guest-hosted by Kitty Pilgrim. Even as Pilgrim confronts the two player-hater guests with a mountain of evidence and facts, they still are unsatisfied.
Frankly, I thought Keyes was nuts, but that lawyer (Orly Taitz) makes him look composed, rational and credible.
PILGRIM: Well, an Army Reserve major is again raising controversy over President Obama’s place of birth. Now, the major challenged his deployment orders, claiming that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, and that renders his orders illegal.
Now, a former presidential candidate, Alan Keyes, also filed a lawsuit challenging the president’s right to hold an office, and a hearing will be — on that suit will be held on Monday.
Now, questions about the president’s place of birth have been asked and answered many times since before the election, and the president’s birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii. The state’s Republican governor and other officials have backed that up. CNN has fully investigated the issue, found no basis for the questions about the president’s birthplace, but the controversy lives on, especially on the Internet.
Joining me now is Orly Taitz, and she represents the Army major and filed the Keyes lawsuit. Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes joins us. And on the other side, John Avlon, who is a columnist for the DailyBeast.com and author of Independent Nation; and Errol Louis, columnist for the New York Daily News and a CNN contributor, also an attorney.
And so, let me, just before we start, bear with me a bit. There’s overwhelming evidence that proves that his birth certificate is real, and that he was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961. If you’ll just bear with me, I’ll run through a little bit of the evidence, and then we can get to this discussion. Now, the Annenberg Political Fact Check, which is a nonpartisan group, went to Chicago to view the birth certificate last year, and they released photos and this statement, “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he always has said.”
The Republican governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, on record, she says Obama was indeed born in her state, and we should note, she did support John McCain. So, we also have a copy of the Honolulu Advertiser, the newspaper, August 13, and the Hawaii Star-Bulletin, August 14, 1961, both announcing Barack Obama’s birth.
Also, October last year, the director of the Hawaii Department of Health wrote a letter, stating, “I have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Senator Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedure.”
PolitiFact.com reissued their results from their investigation they conducted in June of last year, and they say, quote, “Since we published Obama’s birth certificate, questions about its authenticity have been frequent and fierce. After reviewing the evidence, we are confident of our rulings.”
And this is the last one; thanks for bearing with me. The White House press briefing this week, reporter from the WorldNetDaily pressed again about the birth certificate. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said this following comment:
GIBBS (video clip): Do all of your listeners and the listeners throughout this country the service to which any journalist owes those listeners, and that is the pursuit of the noble truth, and the noble truth is that the president was born in Hawaii, a state of the United States of America.
PILGRIM: Now, Alan Keyes, you’ve been patient letting me get through all that, but what more do you need to be convinced?
KEYES: Some evidence. And the evidence is something that President Obama is strenuously blocking. You ask me to prove that I was born in New York City at the time and hospital I say, and I will give you a certified copy of a full birth certificate with a doctor’s signature, the hospital, and everything else. I won’t direct you to some photograph on the Internet and a bunch of hearsay statements that would not be accepted as evidence in any court of law.
And so the very simple question is: Why spend $800,000 to a million dollars blocking the birth certificate, blocking records at school and college that would in any way have a bearing on the question –
PILGRIM: All right, Alan –
KEYES: — both of his birth and of his citizenship claims at various times in his life.
PILGRIM: Let me let –
KEYES: Why is he going to all this trouble if, as they say, the matter is resolved? Can’t be resolved by a bunch of statements and assertions.
PILGRIM: OK, Orly, we have to keep this quicker –
TAITZ: Yes.
PILGRIM: — but please tell me what you –
TAITZ: OK, Obama never provided his birth certificate. What he provided is certification of live birth that was issued last year that does not have the name of the doctor, does not have the name of the hospital, does not have any signatures. Do you know that Hawaii has a statute, 338, that allows foreign-born children of Hawaiian residence to get Hawaiian birth certificates? Did you know that?
PILGRIM: Errol, I would like you to respond.
LOUIS: Listen, I think — I think what we have here is a case where under the guise of saying, well, we can’t trust whether or not he should be president because we don’t have the evidence, it’s actually the reverse. These are folks — and there are a number of them, and some of them are raising money, like WorldNetDaily, which is as far as I’m concerned, running a scam, where they’re selling all kinds of bumper stickers and stuff like that. And I don’t know what Miss Taitz is taking in the way of legal fees.
TAITZ: Excuse me, if you –
LOUIS: They’re raising legal fees from across the country –
TAITZ: I’m doing this pro bono.
PILGRIM: All right.
LOUIS: — and the reality is they don’t accept –
TAITZ: It’s pro bono.
LOUIS: — they don’t accept that the president is the president –
TAITZ: No, no, no, no.
LOUIS: — and, therefore, they work backward and there will never be enough proof to satisfy them.
PILGRIM: All right, John, I have to let –
AVLON: You’ve offered a mountain of evidence in addition to two birth announcements. That’s a pretty deep conspiracy. What we have here –
TAITZ: Can I respond to this?
AVLON: No.
PILGRIM: In just one second.
AVLON: What we have here is Obama derangement syndrome. This is pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism.
TAITZ: This is nonsense. This is total nonsense. You have never investigated this.
AVLON: Ambassador Keyes says that President Obama has called him a radical communist.
TAITZ: This is absolutely irrelevant. Sir, this is absolutely irrelevant.
AVLON: You on your blog have repeatedly referred to the administration as Gestapo SS. Which is it? Get your story straight. Is he a Nazi or a communist? You guys are nuts.
TAITZ: You don’t know what you’re talking about.
PILGRIM: Orly, I have to ask you to let everyone at least have their say before you respond to it.
TAITZ: OK.
PILGRIM: I believe we’re out of time, I’m sorry to say. Great discussion. Orly Taitz, Alan Keyes, Errol Louis, and John Avlon.
TAITZ: You know what, let me just mention one more thing. In order to be the president, you have to have two parents that are citizens. Obama’s father was never a citizen of this country.
PILGRIM: All right.
TAITZ: He was a British citizen.
PILGRIM: Orly, we have to call it there. I’m sorry. Thank you very much — all of you — for joining in this very lively debate.
Another attack on Barack Obama that I doubt few (if any) other people who served as president of the United States of America ever had to deal with.
It makes me wonder why.
