POTUS Ipse Dixit
“There’s somethin’ happenin’ here… what it is ain’t exactly clear….”
So begins “For What it’s Worth,” one of the most popular songs from early 1967 performed by one of the 60’s most popular, if short-lived folk rock groups, Buffalo Springfield. Barack Hussein Obama was 5½ years old, having been born (we are told) August 4, 1961. Four-plus decades later, the words have renewed meaning as the occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue continues to bamboozle, blindside and buffalo the American people.
In 2008, from a number of corners came more and more questions relating to whether Obama, then a senator from Illinois, was even eligible under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution, the “natural born Citizen” clause.
That provision precludes any one other than a “natural born citizen” from being deemed eligible to hold the office of president. And despite repeated efforts between 2008 and today by Obama, members of his administration and the largely sycophantic mainstream media to deny, debunk, marginalize and trivialize the issue - still unresolved because of Obama’s intransigence and refusal to provide indisputable, as opposed to purported, proof of his birthplace - the mystery continues to grow and metastasize.
There is, indeed, something happenin’ here….
But first, let us agree: there is a rebuttable presumption that Obama may well be a natural born citizen by virtue of the circumstance that he simply says so, because if nobody is even allowed to question that assertion, he just might pull it off.
There is a Latin phrase from the law that precisely applies here: “ipse dixit,” translating, roughly, to “it is so because I say it’s so.” On this topic, Obama’s nickname may be quickly becoming “POTUS ipse dixit.“ “The recession is over.” “No raising of taxes except on the wealthy.” “If you’re happy with your healthcare, you will keep it.” ”I am a U.S. citizen.”
There is also presumptive evidence that he was, as he claims, born - somewhere - in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961. There is even presumptive evidence that the “certification of live birth” he has posted on the Internet (not to be confused with an original Hawaii birth certificate which could be independently examined and verified) does, in fact, correspond to the “original records kept by the Hawaii Department of Health” as claimed by Hawaiian officials.
These presumptions, however, are just that: mere presumptions. A presumption is not a fact: it is an assumed or inferred supposition offered up and asserted in lieu of actual fact. Indeed, the courts have referred to presumptions as being “the bats of the law, flitting in the twilight, but disappearing in the sunshine of actual facts.”
Moreover, as pointed out by Andrew McCarthy in his excellent article “Suborned in the USA” in National Review, increasingly, the controversy surrounding Obama’s actual birthplace is becoming more about his honesty, candor and purported commitment to “transparency” - that cute pre-election bromide discarded by Obama two nanoseconds after Chief Justice Roberts’ handshake last January - than it is about his actual place of his birth.
This circumstance is traceable, virtually exclusively, to Obama’s continued adolescent refusal to authorize the release of the original birth records, let alone a host of other records that would expose his own past to the sunshine of actual facts. When it comes to Obama’s original records, birth and other, in his lexicon the new “transparency” is: opacity.
On the topics of “hope” and “change,” those charades are now replaced by “arrogance,” “obstinacy” and “paranoia.” This stuff is straight out of 1984’s Newspeak, where up is down, good is bad and truth is falsity, and all of it even George Orwell would deem to be “doubleplusungood” for America. A cynic might be tempted to ask: “What in the heck is the Guy from Chicago trying to hide?”
If, as Obama and his shrinking but still substantial cadre of media apologists insist he is, in fact, a “natural born citizen” under the Constitution, what possible legitimate reason exists for his continuing refusal to order the Hawaii Department of Health officials to release and make available to the public the “original records” which they have already said still exist?
What could be so damaging or problematic in the original records to cause this depth of secrecy? His refusal to produce or authorize the production of the original records has now had the effect of emboldening his critics on the point and has even seemingly produced the ironic effect of “turning” otherwise presumptive sympathetic minds and ears against him.
Case in point # 1: Lou Dobbs. Mr. Dobbs, no friend of the Republicans from his post at CNN, has now taken the position that, while Obama was almost certainly born in Honolulu, and is thus a “natural born citizen,” he should put the continuing speculation and conspiracy theorists to rest by ordering the release of the original birth documents. Simple, yes? Wrong.
The reaction of the liberals’ and Obama attack machine? Why, Dobbs has now simply lost it and, of course, must be fired. Oh, and to add some never-from-ANWR-gasoline to the mix, label Dobbs and anyone who has the temerity to ask the question - even after conceding the likelihood of Obama’s eligibility - a racist. Yeah, that’s the ticket: When all else fails, brandish and play the race card. Ipse dixit.
Case in point # 2: Hawaii State Senator Will Espero, a Democrat, has announced that, while he too believes that Obama is likely constitutionally eligible, he intends to introduce legislation that will make original birth certificates of all persons who are born there public records. Espero also noted that such information “… would be important for relatives and even neighbors.”
Do not bet the ranch that such a bill will ever see the light of day, however, or even if it does and passes out of the legislature, that it won’t be vetoed. Instead, look for a phone call in the near future (if it hasn’t already happened) from Rahm (”The Enforcer”) Emanuel to Espero demanding that he immediately abandon any plans to even think of drafting such legislation, let alone introducing it, and instructing him to fire whoever on his staff failed to deliver to him “The Memo.” No questions allowed. Obedience is mandatory. Resistance is futile.
Yes, Virginia, there’s somethin’ happenin’ here…. and what it is grows increasingly clear. No, not the fact that the Guy from Chicago and his cronies in Congress are stampeding the country into a post-Zimbabwe collectivist existence. Rather, Obama either cannot order the Hawaiian health officials to release the original of his birth certificate, because he knows none exists, or there is something so problematic and threatening to him in those records should they still exist that he will go to the ends of the Earth to prevent them from being exposed to sunshine.
In that regard, they’re sort of like vampires, those creatures who shrivel up and die when bathed in sunlight. Unless and until Obama abandons his juvenile “I’m-the-president-and-I-don’t-have-to” attitude regarding this issue (remember Bush 41 on broccoli?), the questions will persist and the number of people willing to take an objective, rather than reflexive, look at the facts - not the presumptions - will continue to grow, all of the name-calling and demonizing notwithstanding.
Ah, transparency. Ah, hope and change. Ah… ipse dixit.