I should have added that the person I talked with ended up stating to me— once I told her that we just can’t plug in contemporary definitions into a two hundred year old document and get the original intent— that the Constitution should be regarded as “flexible” and that we should give Obama some “leeway” in regarding his citizenship, because “he’s lived in the United States for his whole life, and he is as American as you or I.”
Because it was off point to my goal I did not bother taking issue with this line of thought with her.
However I do sense that if her initial conjecture was correct (that the determination used to decide if Obama was a natural born citizen was that his original BC shows that he was born in Hawaii of at least one US citizen parent) that the ultimate decision would then logically hinge on the interpretation of the Constitutional term natural born citizen in court for a serious matter such as the validity of an order in the armed forces (or quo warranto, but not sure what the current status of that legal effort is). If a court got so far as to grant a subpoena for Obama’s BC to determine if both parents were US citizens, it would be a legal and finance world meltdown for the military and/or government as well as the stock markets, and that in turn is the serious reason why Obama is hanging tough on the BC release— to give as little legal leverage as possible to any legal challenge to his day-to-day authority. (One wonders if the succession Amendment would be invoked at the very instant any such subpoena were granted by any judge). Speculatively, this may be behind Obama’s first EO to seal his records... invoking national security being one more hoop that a lower court would have to jump through before release of the BC. The legal arguments then would become real chicken-and-egg, since how much national security does an EO protect if the chief executive is compromised by lack of elegibility? We would be seeing at a minimum Watergate redux once it were to get that far...
It is difficult to me to envision that Dr. Fukino (with her exclusive medical education and background) had much competent legal help in writing her July 27th statement, since the statement can be interpreted so ambiguously with regards to the natural born American citizen determination. Therefore it is somewhat difficult for me (though of course not by any means out of the question) to envision that Dr. Fukino had Vattel’s definition (two citizen parents) in mind when she made her statement in contrast to some more colloquial and more lenient understanding of the term, since most lay people (without legal background) don’t know Vattel and therefore are not attuned to the legal intricacies of who may or may not be a natural born citizen. I guess that leaves one with the conjecture that Dr. Fukino was just giving a somewhat knee-jerk reaction to all the callers that crashed her office’s telephones when the heat rose with the Obama BC issue around the time of the Cook v. Obama hearing before the July 16th dismissal.
This seems the simplest explanation to me. None of this precludes, of course, other and possibly more involved explanations. I also agree with MissTickly that the use of the term “vital records” in Dr. Fukino’s July 27th statement seems to indicate an amended BC. However, we still would not be able to get the details of any amendments given Hawaii privacy laws and Obama’s refusal to divulge his history, so that knowledge is not of itself very useful IMHO without further assistance from other avenues.
All this is somewhat speculative unless and until more information becomes available.
Speculation, however, does not prevent the public at large, led by Obama-friendly media, to presume Dr. Fukino is both a Constitutional Law expert and trier of fact on the matter of whether Obama is a natural born citizen and thus the issue is settled once and for all— a more responsible statement would have at least reduced legal ambiguity to a bare minimum or better yet avoided the question entirely since Dr. Fukino is IMHO not qualified or authorized to decide who is and who is not a natural born citizen for purposes of interpreting the Constitution. IMHO her statement gave a careful reader the impression that she is heavily politically biased in favor of Obama and used her government position to issue a statement that she felt would help Obama politically. Unfortunately the statement does not settle the issue and the her statement by contributing to the confusion rather than dispelling confusion ultimately serves to interfere with a proper authoritative and legally binding determination of the issue. We have enough unqualified people giving their opinions and views on whether Obama is a natural born citizen. It is an international disgrace that Americans and especially Americans in positions of public trust cannot collectively agree that openness and honesty is the best policy and continue to resort to diversionary tricks such as Dr. Fukino’s July 27th statement.
Fiat Lux!
Ah, I don’t think FUKINO did verify that he is a natural born citizen, I think someone else did. She doesn’t say SHE did in the press release. That’s why this is plan to follow:
First, through UIPA, we request this info:
“WHO has the authority to verify that a vital record maintained on file by the Hawai‘i State Department of Health satisfies the criteria that indicates that the owner of the record is a natural-born American citizen?”
Based on this answer, we file an Information request to the appropriate person (X) to get this info:
“Please send me an electronic copy of the written criteria that is used by (X) to declare an individual, based on their vital records, a natural-born American citizen.”
It could be that Obama declared HIMSELF natural born. We may have to file a FOIA request with to with the White House for the latter request.
What do you think?