Oh Really, O'Reilly?

You blew this one...

by: jayme evans | published: 04 19, 2010

Hey Bill,

On the April 15th, 2010 broadcast of the O'Reilly Factor, you played a little too fast and loose with the truth when discussing the case of Lt. Col Terry Lakin. Lakin, whom we both recall refused orders to deploy to Afghanistan, cited lingering doubts over the constitutionality of Barack Obama's presidency and by extension, the legality of his orders to deploy. Before we get started, a word of advice: You should really skip the "Humble Correspondent" bit, your ego is enormous and dwarfed only by Obama's.

Your entire segment on Lakin was so laden with eye-rolls, snarky facial expressions and verbal sanctimony, your Body Language Expert, Tonya Reimann would have a field day dissecting it.

My principal beef with you is your oft-repeated claim that you single-handedly debunked the alleged myth that Barack Obama was not born in the United States by digging up two public notices in Hawaii papers announcing the August, 1961 birth of little Barry and that these notices prove beyond doubt that Obama was born in the United States.

You opined that Obama's parents would have had to "fake Barack Obama's birth, 'cuz we're gonna know he's gonna be president" and that "Newspapers only print birth announcements when you call them and tell them 'Hey, your baby's born.'" Well, perhaps next time you get the urge to be so sanctimonious on air, you might check your facts first, for those statements expose your second-grade reasoning and feeble command of this issue.

Contrary to the narrow way in which you've framed this debate, there is not one, but several theories percolating about Barack Obama's citizenship, or lack thereof, ranging from his being born in Kenya to his being born in the US to parents who were ineligible to confer natural-born status upon him, as is required by Article II Section I of the US Constitution. The fact that he has put every single document under seal that would shed light on the subject except a computer-generated, Internet-proffered phony with no physician signature and no hospital of birth means that no one, including you, know what his status is.

Let's say for the sake of argument that his parents did fake those birth announcements. Your assertion that they would had to have known he was going to be president some day is completely irrelevant; a red herring. If he was born out of the country and they simply wanted to make him a citizen, all they would have had to do is sneak Barry into the US and then call the papers and tell them, as you said. "Hey, the baby's born."

We're talking about 1961. As you yourself admitted and the facts show, one didn't need to prove a birth occurred, they only had to call their local paper and they would post the announcement. Therefore, Bill, those two announcements only prove that around the time of his alleged birthday in August, 1961, someone called the Hawaiian papers and submitted a birth announcement.

You constantly misrepresent that the birther movement's central argument is that Barack Obama wasn't born in the US, while conveniently overlooking other key questions about the legal status of both parents at the time of his birth and the constitutional requirement of "natural born" citizenship. Why are you and Beck so afraid of this issue? You claim to be such staunch conservative defenders of our Constitution, yet cower in fear of a ratings backlash over a constitutional requirement for the presidency that remains in dispute. I get the impression that you both actually believe there's some merit to the argument, but are afraid of the consequences of it being true. the Internet's most complete archive of information on Barack Obama's eligibility has challenged you many times to come clean. You're a big, tough, strapping blowhard that has gone up against the best, as you constantly embellish to your audience, but you refuse to even acknowledge Farah's work.

Finally, I object to the televised, verbal crucifixion of Lt. Col. Lakin by you and Megyn Kelly. This man is a decorated soldier who is putting his career and his future in peril by standing up for something he believes in and the best the two of you can do is to ridicule him, calling him a "true believer", or implying that he wants to get thrown out of the military. The two of you carried on about the military having no place for those who question orders, but displayed a stunning level of ideological cowardice in the process. When gay service members flaunt the rules, I've never heard either of you ridicule them in such a manner. Your claims to fairness and objectivity, like your claims of single-handedly solving the riddle of the missing birth certificate are empty.

Who are you to stand in judgment over a career soldier, having never put on a military uniform yourself? You mistakenly think that Lakin was simply trying to make a political statement, but I wouldn't expect you to grasp the concept that he was actually jumping on the figurative grenade.

You blew this one, O'Reilly. You owe Lt. Col. Lakin an apology and you owe your audience far more than the sophmoric analysis you've given them on this issue thus far, Pinhead. I don't care how many of those stupid tote bags you've sold or how many books you've written, but if it's any comfort, I do partially agree with the teacher who coined the title of your memoir. You're definitely a piece of something, alright, but whatever it is, it's not bold, it's not fresh and it definitely doesn't smell like anything even remotely resembling humanity.

comments

• Reply to this comment

  Ashland

  Re the question: "What hospital was he born in? And what was the name of his doctor? simple questions, but no one can answer them,Why?"

  Because the official birth certificate of Hawaii is a short-form birth certificate that does not have those facts on it.

  What hospital was Bush, Reagan, JFK and Eisenhower born at? Who cares? They were born in the USA--as was Obama.

  It was Kapiolani hospital, as Obama has repeatedly said, but we do not have confirmation. But we do not need confirmation of the name of the hospital since we did not have confirmation from Bush, Reagan, JFK and Eisenhower (or any president).

  The key fact is that Obama was born in Hawaii, as the official birth certificate shows, and that fact was confirmed twice by the top officials on the Department of Health of Hawaii.

  
  

• Reply to this comment

  Ashland

  You said: "I have 2 questions.What hospital was he born in? And what was the name of his doctor? simple questions, but no one can answer them,Why?"

  Because that information is not on short-form birth certificates. Most states have now adopted short-form birth certificates. Hawaii is one of them. The official birth certificate of Hawaii is now the Certification of Live Birth, a short-form birth certificate (http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html). As you can see, that is the only birth certificate that Hawaii sends out, and Hawaii no longer sends out copies of the original birth certificate.

  You also do not know, and virtually all people do not care, what hospital Bush or Clinton or Pappy Bush or Reagan was born at, or Carter, or Ford or Nixon. None of them showed their birth certificates. And in most cases the only way we know what hospital they were born at was because they told us or wrote about it in their autobiographies.

  What counts is that he was born in Hawaii, and he was. The facts on his official Certification have been confirmed twice by the officials of the Department of Health of Hawaii.

  
  

• Reply to this comment

  Joe M

  I have 2 questions.What hospital was he born in? And what was the name of his doctor? simple questions, but no one can answer them,Why?

  
  

• Reply to this comment

  Ashland

  Obama was not born in Kenya. His mother did not have a passport in 1961, so she could not have gone. His Kenyan grandmother said that he was born in Hawaii, the officials in Hawaii have said twice that he was born in Hawaii, and his official birth certificate says that he was born in Hawaii.

  The idea that Obama's father affects Obama's Natural Born Citizen status is also silly. Would the Chief Justice of the United States have sworn in Obama if he thought that Obamas' father took away Natural Born status? Would the US congress have confirmed Obamas' election UNANIMOUSLY? Would Obama have received all 365 Electoral Votes that he won in the general election if there was even a notion that Obamas' father affected Natural Born Citizen status?

  All US citizens who were born in the USA are Natural Born Citizens. That is the original meaning of Natural Born, which comes from the common law and means "born in the country with the exception of the children of foreign diplomats."

  
  

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