Vic Socotra

09 August 2009

Birthers

(Birther view of the President's Certification of Live Birth)

There are only two directions in the islands- toward the mountain, or Mauka, or toward the sea, Makai.

That is an oversimplification, or course, since on the island of O’ahu, you can also head Ewa (West) or Diamond Head (East), or Windward (NE) or Leeward (SW). Windward, the mauka strip the rain from the breeze, and in the lee of the island bleaches dry.

It is eminently practical, as a way to summarize climate and direction. You will note that it has no association with the compass, where “north” is always straight up. Nor does the shouting and screaming that is happening this strange August, when Congress is home to chat with its constituents.

I was thinking about Hawaii when I went to my folder that has the important documents that are required periodically. I have a couple copies of the photostat of my birth certificate from Detroit, so very long ago. I thought I might still have a copy of the birth certificates for my sons, who were both born on O’ahu.

I remember them vividly, but I think their last of the certified original copies went to them for their own safekeeping. The information on the square green pieces of paper was fairly sparse, but enough to be legal. It included the Doctor’s name, name of the Hospital, my name and that of their mother and our respective races.

I kept them secure for a long time: the kids would clearly need them for important things later on in life.

I did not then know that either of them would run for President, and in point of fact, neither has, at least of now.

Like I say, I did not see either certificate just today, but I do remember all that information being on their Certificates of Live Birth. There is none of that on the certificate that the President’s people have posted on their web site. It is a thing called a “certification” of live birth, and it is not the same thing as the certificate.

The people at the Health Department in Honolulu say that it amounts to the same thing, and that is the end of the matter.

I’m inclined to agree.

At least on that.

Still, I can’t dismiss the “birthers” as they are called these days as the exclusively lunatic fringe. The main stream media is missing something about why people are so freaked out this season, and why the voices are raised so loudly.

The movement is likely to get more shrill and marginalized as we go along. The Birthers got punked the other day when one of their fiercest proponents, a non-native born American, produced a bogus Kenyan birth certificate on MSNBC that purported to show that the President had been born in Mombassa.

There is a whole narrative about how that came to pass, but let’s just forget about the testimony from some Obama family members about that, or the missing pages from the later divorce decree between the President’s mother and father.

It is over, and the President is the President. It does not matter if he was actually adopted by his Mom’s second husband, or if she allowed his citizenship to be renounced or lapse, or whether he petitioned to have it restored when he returned to the U.S. from Indonesia, or whether or not he got scholarship money as a foreign citizen at Occidental College.

Documents don't mean much any more, and the ones on the internet mean nothing at all.

In the course of my research, I think I found the best explanation. Ann Dunham didn't have much regard for documents, and the President cannot be held responsible for the acts of his mother.

Accordingly, there are some items that are inconvenient, and hard to explain, and thus will not be. The record of his life, from Occidental on, for which he would be responsible, is linked to his tangled mother's history, and thus we will never know.

It is all strange, you have to grant, but it is better to just write off the people who want answers and let the matter rest at this point. The President is the President, after all, whether you are mauka or makai.

I think it is much more interesting to consider the role of the noted Chicago radical and theorist, Mr. Saul Alinsky, in all this shouting and yelling season, and the decay of civility.

He was not only a key influence in the life of young Barak Obama, but a key influence on the lives and strategy of others, as disparate as Republican radical Lee Atwater and his disciple, Karl Rove. It is why we don’t talk any more, just shout.

It is interesting, and at least there are no bogus documents in the tale. At least the forged kind.

I hope to get to that in an outing we’ll call The New Caduceus tomorrow.

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