Is Obama a natural-born citizen?

LIMA, Ohio — The most underreported story of 2008 has to be the continuing saga of a few brave souls who are working through the courts to force President-elect Barack Obama to prove his citizenship.

In fact, a report from The Associated Press dismissed the whole thing as nothing but Internet conspiracy theories.

This lack of coverage is just the latest example of why I have mostly lost hope for the mainstream media in the United States.

Thanks to the lack of media coverage, many of you reading this may be unaware of the multitude of lawsuits challenging Obama’s citizenship and his legal right to be president.

The Framers, when putting together our Constitution, inserted Article 2, Section 1, Clause 4, which tells us. “No Person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The same clause prevents Austrian-born California Gov. Arnold A. Schwarzenegger from being president.

There have been at least 17 lawsuits filed in state and federal courts alleging that Obama does not meet the Constitutional requirement of being a natural-born citizen.

The lawsuits filed all have varying theories on Obama’s citizenship, including that he was not born in the United States, that he became a citizen of Indonesia when he was adopted, or that he had dual citizenship at birth, which means he was not a natural-born citizen.

The lawsuit with which I am most familiar was filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania by Philip Berg, a Democrat.

That lawsuit alleges that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya. Berg says he has a recording of Obama’s grandmother, Sarah Obama, saying she was present when Obama was born in Kenya.

Berg further claims that Obama himself and other members of his family have made conflicting statements as to where he was actually born. Additionally, Kenyan officials have said Obama was born in Kenya.

Much of the controversy surrounds Obama’s birth certificate. The state of Hawaii has refused to release the long-form or “vault” copy of the birth certificate. Obama has also refused to release the long-form copy.

Back in June, the campaign did release a short-form certificate, which is a certificate created by Hawaii that says the long-form certificate is on file. However, according to Berg, the campaign only released the short-form certificate to The Daily Kos, a left-wing blog, and FactCheck.org, a pro-Obama organization. Additionally, Berg has called the short-form certificate a forgery.

Berg brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court and was initially denied by Justices David Souter and Anthony Kennedy before submitting his petition to Justice Antonin Scalia.

The Supreme Court has scheduled two conferences on the case, one for Friday and a second one for Jan. 16, four days before Obama will take office.

I do not know if Obama is a natural-born citizen. My instincts tell me that it would have been difficult for him to hide that fact for so long. However, citizenship law can be very murky and Obama’s reticence on the matter is disturbing.

I know from personal experience that when dealing with duel citizenship issues, birth certificates are usually filed in both countries. The state of Hawaii’s statement that it has a birth certificate on file does nothing in solving the mystery of where Obama was born. It merely tells us that his birth was recorded in Hawaii.

The whole controversy might be nothing more than a crazy conspiracy theory. Then again, it might be a valid argument.

The whole matter could easily be settled by the state of Hawaii releasing the long-form certificate, something the Supreme Court can force if it accepts the case for arguments.

There is much at stake here. This is a serious constitutional question. If we find out later that Obama was not a natural-born citizen, then everything he did as president, treaties, laws, executive orders, etc., would be invalid.

The candidates spent more than $1 billion and two years vying for the job. Would it not make sense to give lawyers an afternoon arguing the issue in front of the Supreme Court? That is the least we could do to make sure the person taking the oath of office actually meets the requirements.

The Constitution demands nothing less.

    Thomas J. Lucente Jr. is a columnist with The Lima (Ohio) News, a Freedom Communications newspaper. He is also a veteran of the Iraq war and a law student at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. Visit his blog at http://www.lucente.org.