No Quarter, the pro-Clinton website that has brought you such blockbusters as "Wait Until You See The Tape of Michelle Obama Attacking Whitey" (which still has not materialized), now brings you an encore presentation entitled: "Barry Soetoro: Closet Indonesian Muslim!"
Right wing blogs, such as our very own Advance Indiana, are pushing a school record bearing the name "Barry Soetoro," not "Barack Hussein Obama." The same document says Obama's religion is "Muslim" and that he is an "Indonesian" citizen.
AI and the conservative blogocracy make several arguments against Obama, hoping and praying that one will stick, based on this document:
(1) Obama can't be president under the U.S. Constitution;
(2) Obama lied on his Illinois bar application because he didn't disclose other names he'd used; and
(3) Obama lied about being Muslim.
At the outset, let me say that as a family law attorney, I take a very measured approach to ANY document a parent fills out for a child. Often these records reflect "truth," only if by "truth," you mean the subjective beliefs of the parent filling out the form. Do you have any idea how many virgin births there would be in this country if we took as proof positive of this phenomenon each school record where no father was listed? Do you know how many living moms would now be dead if we looked at all the records dads completed? It's sad, but the answer is a boatload. Keep that in mind as you recall that Obama did not complete this form; it was a note from his mom.
First, here is the revelant excerpt from your constitution, Article II:
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.
Until somebody files a legal challenge to the validity of Obama's birth certificate, the State of Hawaii has him as being born in 1961 in their state, and that's what Obama says as well. The fact his mother listed him as an Indonesian citizen means nothing. AI might say it proves that the Hawaii birth certificate IS a phony. To retort, it might also prove that Obama's mother was concerned about how her son would be treated in Jakarta as an American citizen, a belief which may or may not have been, itself, objectively reasonable.
I had a client with a son with mental retardation diagnosed through testing, but this was not listed in the school records. Why? He didn't want his child to be treated differently. Unless somebody talks to Ms. Obama and finds out her motivation, the fact she claimed him as an Indonesian citizen doesn't move me.
Second, when Obama filled out his bar application, was he thinking, "Wait! Some day I might run for president and somebody will not vote for me if they know people used to call me Barry Soetoro!?!" Of course not. More than likely, he either didn't know his mother had listed him under that name in this record, he was never called Barry Soetoro, or he was called it infrequently or so long ago, he didn't remember of think it reached any level of significance. When I was in law school, all my friends called me Gordo. Did I need to put that in my Indiana bar application? Of course not. Because I knew what my real name was, just like Obama did. (Seriously, folks, if he could have told everybody his name was NOT "HUSSEIN," don't you think he would have jumped on the chance to disavow it?!?)
The funny thing about this is that these are all childhood things that Barack can't control. His mom can call him Dimplecheeks Obama, but when you know your real name, that's what you list as names by which you have gone on an official state form.
Here's my challenge to all right-wing bloggers. Find me a document that Barack Obama has filled out IN ADULTHOOD with the name Barry Soetoro. What name did he use to apply for college? What about law school? Find Barry Soetoro on those applications. Then we'll talk.
You say, "But Chris, why would his mother have listed him as Barry Soetoro if his real name were Barack Hussein Obama?" Oh, perhaps because his father was absent from their lives, and she couldn't stand him. Or perhaps she wanted him to feel some kindred bond with his step-sibling.
Third, did he hide his Muslim faith? Again, that is his mother filling out the document, not him. If my mother filled out a document when I was a kid, she'd say I was Catholic. But when I filled out a college application when I was adult, I wouldn't. Nor am I sure what I would put if I was asked "in what religion were you was raised." To the extent I had one, it was Catholic. But I didn't go to church after I turned 14 years old.
Fair criticism is fair criticism, and when Obama started sounding squishy on the Iraq War, I started calling him out on it. But there is a fanatical desire to destroy his candidacy now with things that he couldn't even control because he was essentially a child.
I really do not want to point to race as right-wing bloggers motivation because if the Clintons showed anything, it's that white conservatives can REALLY drum up some deep-seated hatred toward other white people (a/k/a "Hillary"). But I don't understand how the hatred of this man has eclipsed even that level of venom.
We'll give a cocaine-sniffing, alcoholic GROWN MAN named Bush a pass to the presidency, but we'll try to destroy Obama with what his mom said about him, where she made him go to school, and what she might have made him do religiously to fit in with his peers in Jakarta.
Quite frankly, Scarlett...I don't give a damn. And you shouldn't either.
