Deliberate Deceit?

Are you as tired of hearing about the president’s birth certificate as I am? Probably. To be pragmatic about it, at this time in his term, it doesn’t make any difference one way or another.

Say convincing, absolute proof emerged he is not a natural citizen. So what will happen? You think the FBI is going to scurry into the White House and lead him away in handcuffs?

Get serious.

After the certificate of birth was made public, you probably noted many of the president’s supporters reminding ‘birthers’ with a smug I-told-you-so that President Obama was—oops, sorry, Freudian Slip, is indeed a natural citizen.

Some of the pundits even went as far as gloating over the revelation of the birth certificate.

And in all honesty, I understand their delight. Their beliefs are vindicated. Their man had been unjustly accused. Now he has been exonerated.

Or has he?

As far as I’m concerned, he answered the question of citizenship and nothing more should be said about it.

But, that just isn’t the way things are.

A couple days after the revelation, I received an email concerning discrepancies in the certificate. It sounded legitimate, and the truth is, the discrepancies were legitimate as far as they went.

The document was a perfect example of why one should never take for gospel what he reads or hears, especially online.

Here’s the story.

The certificate listed Obama’s birth as August 4, 1961. It also listed Barack Hussein Obama as his father and his age as twenty-five. It stated his father was born in ‘Kenya, East Africa.’

The author jumped on that. He said ‘Kenya did not exist until 1963, two years after Obama’s birth, and twenty-seven years after his father’s birth. Up until 1963, the country was called British East Africa Protectorate.”

His point was ‘How could the father be born in a country that did not exist?’
His second point is that Obama was born in the ‘Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital’. The problem says the author is that in 1961, there were two hospitals, ‘KauiKeolani Children’s Hospital and Kapi’olani Maternity Home’. They merged in 1978 under the name ‘Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital’, seventeen years after his birth.

The email seemed convincing, but I researched the data myself.

It’s true, Kenya did not become an independent republic until 1963-64, but even as the British East Africa Protectorate, from about 1939 on, it was called Kenya Colony.
The author was right. In 1961, Kenya, the independent republic, did not exist, but the Kenya Colony did.

The second question concerning the hospitals was much simpler to answer. In fact, I can’t see why there was ever a question in the author’s mind. In 1918, the Kapi’olani Maternity Home was established. Thirteen years later in 1931, it changed its name to ‘Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital. Now it is true there was a merger in 1978, but the name was already in existence.

I’ve run across a dozen different conspiracies concerning the birth certificate. It’s time to let it die a natural death, but that will never happen.

The third point the author made is one that I wonder about. I’m not going to lose sleep over it though he does raise a good question. “Why,” he asked. “Did it take over three years and 1.7 million dollars in court fights to keep the document from being released?”

Personally, I don’t care, but it does seem like a waste of taxpayer money.

On the other hand, look around. What else is new?



rconwell@gt.rr.com
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com