The Eligibility Zombie: Redux

IS FURTHER EXPLANATION REQUIRED SINCE OBAMA RELEASED A “LONG-FORM” IMAGE WHICH THE CRS MEMO STATED WAS UNNECESSARY?

by Joseph DeMaio

(May 28, 2011) — In the first posting on the topic entitled “The Eligibility Zombie,” the role of an April 3, 2009 memorandum prepared by a lawyer at the Congressional Research Service (“CRS”), one Jack Maskell, was addressed.  The context related to its impact on the legal issue of presidential eligibility under the Constitution.  The memo, which can be accessed here, was noted as having been analyzed by author Dr. Jerome Corsi – a Harvard Ph.D. – in his new and increasingly popular book, Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama is Not Eligible to be President.  If you are interested in why this issue is important, go buy the book and read it.  Seriously.

Dr. Corsi’s book is an excellent, scholarly and well-documented presentation of why now, more than ever before, people should be questioning whether Mr. Obama is – or in fact has ever been – constitutionally eligible to serve as president.  Indeed, a close examination of Dr. Corsi’s book confirms that, if anything, it understates the problem.  Moreover, that problem exists wholly apart from the “release” by Mr. Obama of another Internet “picture” of what he claims is his “original” Hawaiian long-form birth certificate and independently of whether the Internet image (or, for that matter, the original…if one exists) is authentic or, as many now believe it to be, a forgery.

In his book, Dr. Corsi focuses on the fact that the CRS Memo confirms that no one in the “official” candidate or election food chain prior to November 2008 “vetted” Mr. Obama’s constitutional eligibility, because no state or federal law “required” anyone to do so.  Dr. Corsi also asserts (at p. 295) that “…the most important paragraph in the [CRS] document…” is the one where Mr. Maskell confirms that no official “vetting” occurred because no law required it, as if that were the end of the story.  With respect – it sometimes being risky to disagree with Harvard Ph.D.’s – there are other portions of the CRS memo which may ultimately be seen as far more important because they implicate far more ominous perils.  Specifically, there exist certain substantive and unexplained “anomalies” and “irregularities” in the memo which, if they remain unexplained, cast substantial doubt on the memo’s accuracy and thus, its ultimate authority and worth.

Unless sufficient clarifications and explanations of these anomalies and irregularities in the April 3, 2009 memo are adduced by those in a position to do so, one of the larger bamboozlings of the Congress since the founding may have occurred.  To be clear, those explanations would need to be specific and detailed and come from the responsible officials in charge at the CRS and the Library of Congress, the umbrella agency under which the CRS exists.  The characteristic species of comedic and deflective “responses” masquerading as “answers” which can again be expected from Mr. Obama’s sycophants in the mainstream media and in Saturday Night Live skits, which are getting really old, will not suffice.  No more plugging of the ears with index fingers and singing “la-la-la-la-laaaaaa-la.”  Not this time.

As will be detailed in subsequent posts, the CRS April 3, 2009 document – the so-called “Maskell Memorandum” – appears to have intentionally and improperly “fudged” its conclusion that Mr. Obama, purportedly having been born in Honolulu, is a “natural born Citizen” as that term was understood by the Founding Fathers when they drafted the Constitution.  This, in turn, lays the foundation for the memo’s conclusion that, if Mr. Obama was born “in” the United States, that is all which is necessary to qualify him under the “natural born Citizen” clause of the Constitution, and thus, renders him eligible to the presidency.  With due respect, no U.S. Supreme Court decision has so held, and the CRS memo, with its contentions to the contrary, is no substitute for such a decision.

If the “fudging” anomaly in the CRS memo has a rational explanation or if it can be demonstrated that, in fact, no “fudging” of the conclusion occurred, such an explanation or demonstration should be produced, again by the responsible parties in the CRS or the Library of Congress and not by Mr. Obama’s surrogates.  Indeed, if the de facto president himself has an explanation, that too would be welcomed.  And the answers to the anomalies and irregularities – again, not to be confused with the usual deflective, juvenile “responses” to which the nation has become so accustomed and numbed under this regime – must be produced sooner rather than later.  And, by the way, there exist at least two other CRS documents – one authored, again, by Mr. Maskell – casting additional substantial doubt upon the claimed mission of the CRS to provide Congress with “authoritative, confidential, objective and nonpartisan” legal analysis.  Explanations for the irregularities in those other documents also would be welcomed.

Returning, therefore, to the original post, there were two comments submitted which are particularly noteworthy.  One came from “RacerJim,” who asserted that the CRS memorandum “…was a fraud in and of itself…”  Another comment from “kailuagirl” (perhaps from Hawaii?) criticized Glenn Beck for his avoidance of the eligibility issue, and then observed: “To omit is to defraud.”

Keep these two insightful reader observations in mind as you prepare to learn what your tax dollars allocated to the Congressional Research Service have purchased for you.  Then prepare as well, if you are uncomfortable with what seems to have taken place here, to demand – not “ask”… not “request”… not “beg”… – demand answers from your respective Senators and Representatives, because if you don’t, who will?  They do, after all, work for you, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

Finally, remember the words attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  Let me add: good women should also participate.  Doing “nothing” is what has gotten us into this mess in the first place.