The Independent View

While most folks accept that Obama was born in the U.S. of an Amer­i­can mother, it is increas­ingly sug­ges­tive that he may have shared Kenyan cit­i­zen­ship from his father, then when his mother remar­ried, was adopted and became an Indone­sian cit­i­zen. In the lat­ter, a school record clearly lists his cit­i­zen­ship as Indone­sian. This would seem con­sis­tent with his adop­tion and the fam­ily move to Indonesia.

Obama has not addressed this. His offered birth cer­tifi­cate is being ques­tioned by a num­ber of folks who claim it is a forgery. It is sug­gested that his orig­i­nal birth cer­tifi­cate was sealed and replaced by a new one upon his adop­tion and move to Indone­sia. It is sug­gested that in addi­tion to his new name, Barry Soe­toro, his adopted father and his mother changed his cit­i­zen­ship to Indone­sia. Surely there will be records of this some­where but I’ve yet to see any­thing beyond the notes about the sealed orig­i­nal birth cer­tifi­cate, the new one, a copy allegedly issued in 2007, an orig­i­nal that Obama wrote he held, and com­ments about the adop­tion in 1965 or 1966. I have not seen any­thing defin­i­tive on any of this to show it is any­thing more than speculation.

A pho­to­graph of an Indone­sian school record, taken in Jan­u­ary 2007 pur­port­edly shows Obama as Barry Soe­toro, reli­gion as Islam, and cit­i­zen­ship as Indone­sian. I have per­son­ally emailed AP and the cur­rent host of this image (Daylife) seek­ing con­fir­ma­tion that this image is legit. I’ve even called the lat­ter but it does not appear that any­one answers the phones and voice­mail mes­sages have so far not been returned. I’m very sus­pi­cious of this doc­u­ment, even though it shows that it’s been posted for 18 months, it’s dis­cov­ery now and con­tent is very timely and explo­sive. Con­sider too that Daylife man­age­ment include pre­vi­ous mem­bers of Edwards and Kerry’s cam­paigns, plus the DNC. This doc­u­ment could be a fake to stir up and embar­rass those oppos­ing Obama. I have received con­fir­ma­tion from Matthew Lutts at AP at 3:44 p.m. ET that “Yes, the image is legit.”

There are numer­ous sites now link­ing to and dis­cussing this doc­u­ment. An early source is so-​called Tex­as­Dar­lin in his/​her blog of the same name. As they are anony­mous, I dis­trust what they write. As of this after­noon, though, they do link to an AP arti­cle by Nedra Pick­ler via The Wash­ing­ton Post regard­ing the school record. The focus there was dis­put­ing the labeled reli­gion but not the cit­i­zen­ship. Reli­gion was and for some is still the hot-​button issue. The ques­tion of cit­i­zen­ship is far more impor­tant and has con­sti­tu­tional and elec­tabil­ity impli­ca­tions that make this wor­thy of revisiting.

Two other sites offer more cau­tious review of the school record and its implications:

• Change & Expe­ri­ence. Which is also, like Tex­as­Dar­lin, anony­mous, but offers more care­ful and even bal­anced dis­cus­sion of the school record.
• Andy Mar­tin, author of “Obama: The Man Behind the Mask”, offers a cau­tious analy­sis of the doc­u­ment and its implications.

This does put the legit­i­macy of Obama’s can­di­dacy and eli­gi­bil­ity to be pres­i­dent in ques­tion. I think Obama needs to pro­vide unequiv­o­cal answers to a num­ber of questions:

1. Are you now a U.S. citizen?
2. Have you ever held as a youth or adult, cit­i­zen­ship in another country?
3. Did you ever pos­sess or travel using, at least in part, the pass­port of another coun­try? (E.g., while in Indone­sia, vis­it­ing Pak­istan, Kenya)
4. Did you renounce any for­eign cit­i­zen­ship, and when, and do you now hold solely U.S. cit­i­zen­ship today?
5. Can you con­firm or deny your name change as a youth from Barack Hus­sein Obama II to Barry Soe­toro when you were adopted by your step-​father?
6. Did you legally reclaim your birth name? When and how?
7. Why did you not list your adopted name Barry Soe­toro on any forms asso­ci­ated with your legal pro­fes­sion or oth­ers that ask for any other names you have ever used? Have you now or will you update these records?
8. And by the way, did you reg­is­ter with the U.S. Selec­tive Ser­vice when you turned 18?

I am sure these ques­tions can be bet­ter worded, espe­cially to extract clear yes/​no answers, and I am also sure that there are other per­ti­nent ques­tions that might be asked at the same time. I do think that now, or later in the cam­paign, these ques­tions will be asked again and again and that even­tu­ally Obama will be forced to answer. I’d pre­fer that now so that the Demo­c­ra­tic party and del­e­gates to the con­ven­tion can make an informed choice when they vote for Obama or Clin­ton as the party nominee.

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