He who lives by the hoax, dies by the hoax.
People have been complaining for months about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, complaining that the official, under seal document from the State of Hawaii should not be honored, contrary to Hawaii law, contrary to federal immigration law, and contrary to the Constitution’s full faith and credit clause. Something must be wrong with the document, they have claimed over and over, though no credible evidence of any problem has ever surfaced, let alone been presented to any authority. Lawsuits have been dismissed for standing, dismissed for failure to state a case, and lately dismissed with warnings that nuisance suits will bring Rule 11 sanctions (Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that an attorney not file false or misleading documents, and that they swear that what they allege in a complaint is actual controversy and not hoax or false).
Even a reiteration from Hawaii officials didn’t quell the lunatic screams from the birther asylums. (Here’s I’ve usually referred to the birth certificate-obsessed, or BCOs; I’ll continue using that acronym.)
The BCO universe erupted with glee over the weekend with the presentation of a document purported to be a birth certificate for Barack Obama, Jr., from Mombasa, Kenya.
While warning more sane and cool people that they were not skeptical enough of Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate, BCOs claimed they now had the smoking gun. Orly Taitz, a California dentist/lawyer, promised to blow the case of Obama’s alleged ineligibility wide open with new filings of documents in California state courts.
They wanted so badly for the document to true and accurate, even though it would have offered no new ammunition for their claims, since Obama’s mother was a citizen and under U.S. law a child born to a U.S. citizen is considered a born citizen no matter where in the universe it is born . . .
That was Friday night. Beginning Saturday morning, the hoax began to unravel.
BCO’s were had! Someone had hoaxed them!
So, of course, they have gotten louder in their demands that the White House toss Obama to the crowd with pitchforks and torches, so they can investigate.
The document is a classic hoax, delivered where and when gullibility made the BCO arguments most vunerable (which is any time, really).
Just after having complained that long-established and well-respected hoax debunking site Snopes.com could not be trusted, WorldNet Daily, the modern electronic analog to the pre-lawyered National Enquirer crossed wtih Saga magazine, now claimed it had the smoking document, and showed pictures of it.
Hoax birth certificate for Barack Obama, Jr, alleged to be showing birth in Mombasa, then Zanzibar
Never mind that the certificate offered suffers from more problems than the BCOs claimed to find with the document Hawaii offered — no signatures of any official, no attending physician, unintelligible seal, not a “long form,” etc. — it was, WorldNet Daily, Orly Taitz and others said, THE jenyu-wine article. They even offered close-ups.
Another view of the hoax document offeree by BCO Orly Taitz.
See? Right there you can see: Barack Obama, Sr. (Obama’s father), 26 years old. The Registrar, E. F. Lavender. Registered in Mombasa on August 5, 1961, one day after Obama’s birthday. It even shows the book and page number of the original registration document, and the date the official who signed this document issued it in Mombasa, Republic of Kenya, on February 17, 1964.
Okay, students: How many problems can you find with the document?
See below the fold.
Ready to check what you’ve got?
Exposures of the hoax have been made several places. Here are some of the glaring points; some links are offered if you want more details. Sane people may have remembered the last document BCO’s presented, showing Obama having been born in Canada, witnessed by Dudley Doright. BCO’s let their guard down:
- What’s with the date, February 17, 1964? Who would have tried to get a copy of Obama’s certificate then, for what?
- The document says “Republic of Kenya.” On February 17, 1964, Kenya was a monarchy. It would not become a republic for another ten months.
- Note the fee listed, in British pounds and shillings; Kenya didn’t use that monetary system.
- Mombasa? It was part of Zanzibar in 1961, and at least until December 1963 — maybe until December 1964. So if the birth certificate says “Kenya . . .”
- Obama Sr. was born in 1936. He was 25 in 1961, not 26.
- “The kicker? The image is part of the extremely ill-informed conspiracy theory that Obama was born in Mombasa—conveniently, one of the more Muslim parts of the country.
“This has always been a red flag for conspiracy theorists, so it deserves some explanation. Barack Obama Sr. was born and educated in Nyanza Province, in southwestern Kenya, on Lake Victoria. This is the area where Obama’s family lived and continues to live; Sarah Obama, the step-grandmother of the president, lives in Nyang’oma Kogelo, a small town in the province. But Mombasa is a city on the Indian Ocean, a thousand miles to the east. It didn’t even have an international airport until 1979. And the city wasn’t even part of Kenya when the future president was born. Mombasa was a part of Zanzibar until December 12, 1963, when it became part of the newly independent Kenya.
“The new forgery? Why, it claims that the president was born in Coast General Hospital in Mombasa.”
Also see the article at Salon - The number on the document is 47044 — 47 years, Obama, 44th president. Cute, huh?
- Look here, see the Australian birth certificate this latest hoax was based on. Too much of a coincidence: “The design is identical, down to the seal at the top and the classifications (‘Christian name,’ etc) used for identifying the baby.
“The ‘registrar’ on the Bomford document is G. F. Lavender. On the Taitz document, it’s E. F. Lavender.
“The ‘district registrar’ on the Bomford document is J. H. Miller. On the Taitz document, it’s M. H. Miller.”
Never again can they claim not to be gullible.
How about the BCOs just give it up?
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] Birther karma: Hoaxsters get hoaxed on Kenya birth document […]
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[…] “Birther Karma: Hoaxers get hoaxed on alleged Kenya document” […]
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[…] the best thing going for the plaintiffs is that Orly Taitz only appears by name in a bizarre accounting of everything ever said on the issue (except for the lack of […]
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Another one who liked it was Edwin X Berry, one of the signers of Open Letter to American Physical Society, wishing to negate the last 30 years of climate science.
Berry’s Website *features* the Kenyan birth certificate.
Also interesting is the support of Monckton, and the chiding of Spokane for signing on with UN ICLEI, in item called “We are partying on the train to Auschwitz”.
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Donna, that someone other then the hoaxers who is trying to benefit is, in no particular order:
1: Rush Limbaugh
2: Lou Dobbs
3: Glenn Beck
4: The entirety of Fix..er Fox…er Fix News.
5: The GOP
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Oh… and my experience with original “long form” birth certificates is that they often contain incorrect information.
For example, my mother’s parents are listed as both having been born in Memphis TN, which is wrong. What happened in them “olden” days is that a midwife often would fill out a months worth of birth certificates from memory.
I have an Aunt who didn’t know what her “real” name was until she applied for social security and got a copy of her birth certificate. The midwife/attendant did not remember what her parents named her, so they made something up.
I’m writing this to point out that even though I think reporting systems in 1961 were much more accurate than in 1923… my certification of live birth has my father’s name misspelled.
But, like any genealogist, I’m consumed with curiosity and would like to see the long form original. It wouldn’t change my mind as to whether Obama is a “legal” president, but it would be interesting.
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I’m not questioning the veracity of the released birth certificate, and frankly find the whole fiasco silly. But… it’s gone on long enough that I think someone other than the “hoaxers” think they will benefit from prolonging the agony, so to speak.
The fact that such a silly allegation has garnered such attention makes me wary.
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The document already released contains all the legal information necessary to establish his eligibility under Article II. BCOs say they think it’s a fraud.
What possible guarantee is there that they will not complain similarly about any other document offered? So far in this travail, BCOs have introduced three different hoax certificates which they claimed to be accurate despite howling errors (one claimed a Canada birth and was signed by Dudley Doright, a cartoon character from the Rocky and Bullwinkle stable, and yet was introduced in court as “proof” Obama is not eligible). Where people “believe” howling errors and “disbelieve” official documents sworn by state governments to be accurate, where is there any advantage in offering more fodder for rumor mills?
But what if there are other things on the birth certificate? Do we have any reason to know them? In some states, birth certificates carry notes, such as diseases the birth mother had at the time of birth, especially venereal disease. Medical conditions, such hermaphroditism are noted. In one case I know of, an error of gender identification was recorded on the certificate.
Do we have any business with such information? Would it quell BCOs, or egg them on?
Early in the campaign there was concern about attacks that Obama was Muslim. Birth certificates sometimes carry notes of subsequent activities, like adoptions by step parents, or just a notation of step parents. If Obama’s certificate contained any mention of Mr. Soetoro, would that knowledge be accepted benignly, or would it make this pack of howlers go off on claims Obama holds a “secret religion?”
What possible advantage could be gained from releasing more documents at this point? From the view of the law, the current documents are definitive. They are not in question without non-hoax documentation of significant error in the documents. There is no such documentation in evidence in any of the 6,527 imaginary cases against Obama.
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I firmly, and without a doubt, believe that Obama was born in Hawaii exactly as his birth certification says. However, as a long-time genealogist, I know that additional information is recorded on the “long form” or “original” birth certificate signed by the doctor.
I also understand that no documentation of birth can be released to anyone other than Obama. Does he not know there is an underlying document that he could request be released?
Why would he not want it released to put an end to all this mess? That, I don’t quite understand unless he’s enjoying the brouhaha over it or simply doesn’t know another document exists. I hate to think he’s naive or uninformed, so I conclude he’s enjoying the controversy.
Whatever entertains one is fine by me.
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It is also typed in English, because no matter what country you are in everybody speaks English
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Clever, and an effective ruse to dish out just desserts.
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Forgot that “E.F. Lavendar” is the name of a detergent apparently.
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