Topic: Western Journalism Center
We've detailed how the Western Journalism Center, under the leadership of right-wing activist Floyd Brown, has positioned itself as a promoter of the Obama birth certificate conpsiracy. So when it starts debunking key birther claims, perhaps one should listen.
A July 21 unbylined WJC blog post reviews a CNN appearance by birthers Alan Keyes and Orly Taitz. It began in the usual sycophantic way, asserting that "Dr Keyes spoke very well in the minute or so allotted him" -- a laughable claim giving that Keyes' response to the mountain of evidence presented by CNN's Kitty Pilgrim was to demand "some evidence."
But then, the post takes a shockingly reality-based turn, asserting: "On the other hand, from her interview it seems that Orly Taitz is building her case on 2 premises, one false and the other irrelevant."
The post states: "Orly Taitz asserts that 'to be president there have to be two parents who are citizens.' This is false." Citing "Blackstone’s classic exposition in 1765 ... from the Commentaries on the Laws of England" -- funny, we thought conservatives were opposed to using foreign law to make decisions in the U.S. -- the post continues:
Blackstone explicitly grounds natural-born status on location (jus soli), not parentage, except when the child is born abroad. The notion that both parents have to be citizens is false. All children born on American soil are natural-born subjects or citizens.
WJC then goes on to claim that suggest that, based on Blackwell, "If [Obama] was born on foreign soil, the fact that his father was not an American citizen would disqualify him from natural-born citizenship." But the WJC curiously fails to mention what U.S. law has to say on the subject -- as we've noted, legal scholars have pointed out that courts have ruled any child born to at least one U.S. citizen is a U.S. citizen, and claims that Obama's mother was too young to confer citizenship on her son are false.
Even more shocking, WJC demolishes another key claim, that Obama's "certification of live birth" is suspect because of a 1982 law that allowed people not born in Hawaii to obtain Hawaiian birth certificates:
Under Act 182 H.B. NO. 3016-82, state policies and procedures could accommodate even “children born out of State” (this is the actual language of Act 182) with an original birth certificate on record. But though Act 182 does provide children born out of state with a birth certificate it does not provide them with birth certificates that say that these children were born in Hawaii or at a specific location in Hawaii. Consequently these birth certificates cannot engender Certifications of Live Birth which state that the subject was born in Honolulu, as the purported Obama Certification of Live Birth does. So if the Obama Certification of Live Birth was not forged, it could not have been engendered by an Act 182-authorized birth certificate for “children born out of state”. And if it was forged, the false information on it was not based on anything that could be on an Act-182 authorized birth certificate. So Orly Taitz’ assertion that “Hawaii has statute 338 that allows foreign-born children of Hawaiian residents to get Hawaiian birth certificates” is irrelevant.
One of the key pieces of evidence regularly cited by WorldNetDaily -- whose CEO Joseph Farah founded the WJC -- is that a certification of live birth "is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii." Thus, the WJC has destroyed one of WND's major claims attempting to discredit the birth certificate.
The WJC tries to salvage things by baselessly insisting that "it is increasingly clear that Obama was not born in Hawaii," but no evidence is offered to back that claim up -- which suggests to us that it's is as bogus as the claims it just busted. But it has undermined its case, and the case of its fellow birther travelers, by this sudden fit of truth.
