Arpaio is Onto Something

WHAT DOES THE EVIDENCE SHOW?

by Joseph DeMaio, ©2012

(Mar. 5, 2012) — As a follow-up to several posts commenting on Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s press conference last week exposing the various anomalies in the image of Barack Obama’s purported Hawaiian birth certificate, some additional observations are in order.  If the reaction of the mainstream media is any indication, he and his investigators have pinched a raw nerve.

First, as a review of the video of the press conference demonstrates, the hostility of the “news” reporters present was front and center.  Rather than address the anomalies that Arpaio’s investigators had exposed (many of which had been previously identified and circulated on the Internet, but largely ignored by the mainstream media), the reporters incessantly demanded that Arpaio explain what his motivations were.  Never mind the unexplained anomalies: why was he doing this now?

Seriously?  Unanswered questions as to the constitutional eligibility of a President of the United States of America having been raised which have a direct bearing on whether that person’s name can lawfully be placed on a ballot before Arizona voters, including those residing in Maricopa County, and the “Fourth Estate” is challenging Arpaio’s “motivation?”  Really?  From all appearances, these folks may simply be in training to become employees of the Congressional Research Service to work on the eligibility issues discussed in prior posts here at The P&E.

Moreover, in the mainstream media stories that emanated from the press conference, from the East Coast  to the West Coast and various points in between, the uniformly regurgitated line was that  theories surrounding the fraudulent nature of Obama’s birth certificate had already been “widely debunked.”  As noted here, none of the reporters or the stories following the press conference provided any backup details or documentation as to how the “debunking” had occurred, when it purportedly occurred and by whom the feat had been accomplished.

The term “debunk” is defined as “to expose the sham or falsehood” of something.  Under synonyms for “debunk,” one finds terms including “rebut” and “refute” and expanded definitions such as “to prove to be false” and “to reveal the true nature of” something, giving the interesting example: “<the investigative reporter easily debunked the charlatan’s claims of clairvoyance>”.  “Charlatan” is an interesting term in the context of the eligibility issue.

Using these definitions, it is appropriate to ask: how has Arpaio’s evidence of a forged image of a purported Hawaiian birth certificate and presented at the press conference been “exposed” as a “sham or falsehood?”  What competent evidence has been adduced and, more importantly, produced by Obama supporters (rhymes with “Obama reporters”) to answer and explain the numerous anomalies in the image of the document claimed to be Mr. Obama’s long-form Hawaiian birth certificate?

Recall as well that an image of a written document posted to the Internet, no matter what the nature of the document, is merely a picture of the document, and not the document itself.  The “best evidence” of the original of a document, as a matter of evidentiary law, is the original document itself, as discussed here.  That bedrock principle of evidentiary law, of course, means nothing to the mass of sycophants masquerading as journalists intent on doing whatever is necessary to deflect attention away from the reality that, apparently, their Emperor may have no clothes.

In truth, rather than “debunking” the evidence Sheriff Arpaio and others have unearthed, the reporters are retreating into their own verbal “bunkers,” accusing Arpaio of trying to divert attention away from his own problems with the Obama regime and suggesting that this is but one more political stunt of his own manufacture.  Against the accumulated – and accumulating – evidence that the image of the purported birth certificate is a fraud, instead of a “debunking” of the evidence, there has been a wave of other “D” words, including “dissembling,” “denial,” “diversion,” “deflection” and “demonizing” by Obama’s enablers and apologists.

None of these words (or deeds) have even come close to proving – with competent evidence as opposed to “Snopes.com” or “FactCheck.org” excuses – that Arpaio’s evidence is other than true.  Nor have the excuses and responses done anything to explain, or more precisely, explain away the image anomalies, let alone produce the “best evidence” of what the truth about Obama may actually be.

The day after the press conference, The Arizona Republic, from Arpaio’s home turf, ran an editorial captioned “No politics in probe? Oh, sure.”   The editorial, however, did not use the term “widely debunked.”  Instead, it used the terms “thoroughly debunked” and claimed that Arpaio’s evidence has had “bipartisan debunking.”  As proof of “thorough” and “bipartisan” debunking, the editorial offered up references to the absolutely, unquestionably and irrefutably objective “snopes.com” website (insert suppressed, sarcastic chuckle here) and an article in National Review by one Nathan Goulding.

First, the notion that snopes.com is objective on the issue is akin to the claim that Bill Ayers and Barack Obama were but passing acquaintances.  As for the Goulding piece in National Review, it was published April 27, 2011. the same day that the White House posted to the Internet the image of what was claimed to be the Hawaiian original long-form certificate of live birth.  Goulding’s article,  found here, acknowledges that “What’s plausible is that somewhere along the way – from the scanning device to the PDF-creation software, both of which can perform OCR (optical character recognition) – these partial/pseudo-text images were created and saved.”  He then goes on, however, to dismiss the notion that a vast, pro-Obama governmental conspiracy was at work to proffer up a fake document, and concludes with this interesting comment: “It’s likely that whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii forgot to turn off the OCR setting on the scanner. Let’s leave it at that.”  No big deal. Operator error.  Move along. Nothing more to see here..

Ummmm…. wait a second.

Goulding said “… whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii..”  The image posted on the Internet April 27, 2011 by the White House came at a point in time after Mr. Obama had requested (Friday, April 22, 2011) that his lawyer, Judith Corley at the Perkins Coie law firm office in Washington, D.C., secure from Ms. Loretta Fuddy at the Hawaii Department of Health hard prints of “two certified copies of my original certificate of live birth.”  Ms. Corley’s letter to Ms. Fuddy conveying the request indicated that she (Ms. Corley) would be “coming to your offices to pick up the copies of the certificates.”  That letter was also dated Friday, April 22, 2011.

Ms. Fuddy responded to Mr. Obama by letter dated Monday, April 25, 2011 thusly: “[e]nclosed please find two certified copies of your original Certificate of Live Birth.”  Since Ms. Corley had indicated in her April 22, 2011 letter to Ms. Fuddy that she would be “coming to your [Fuddy’s] offices” to take possession of the certificates, and since Ms. Fuddy’s confirming letter is dated the following Monday, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Ms. Corley (or someone on her behalf from perhaps the Los Angeles offices of Perkins Coie) physically went to Honolulu and took possession of the letter and certified copies of the birth certificates sometime between Monday, April 25, 2011 and the morning of April 27, 2011, when the image of the copy was posted to the Internet.

If this chronology is true, then Goulding is plainly wrong and any reliance on his “bipartisan debunking” would be woefully misplaced.  If two safety-paper originals of certified copies of Mr. Obama’s original birth certificate were placed into the possession of his lawyers sometime on or after April 25, 2011, why would there be a need for the document to be scanned “in Hawaii?”  On the other hand, if Goulding is correct and it turns out the document was scanned in Hawaii, one possible explanation might be that due to time and/or logistical constraints, the .pdf file needed to be e-mailed through cyberspace to either Ms. Corley or the White House.

While some rube staffer in the Hawaii Department of Health may have, under Goulding’s theory, simply forgotten to “turn off the OCR setting on the scanner,” if some rube staffer in Washington D.C. was responsible for the scanning and forgot to turn off the OCR function, one can probably rest assured that person is now a “former staffer.”  And, parenthetically, Mr. Goulding’s theory that OCR software was responsible for the “innocent” anomalies in the image posted by the White House – ones he claims you can replicate “at home” – is systematically dismantled (some would say “debunked”) in the Arpaio press conference video beginning at 16:45 and continuing through 19:45, proving that the posted image was categorically not subjected to optical character recognition software processing before being posted.

Assuming Goulding is wrong regarding who goofed and failed to deactivate the OCR function when scanning the document, it seems safe to assume that the image posted to the Internet (and free of OCR manipulation) must therefore have originated in Washington D.C., not Honolulu, Hawaii, at some time on or after April 25, 2011.  At 1:06:45 into the press conference video, Mike Zullo, Sheriff Arpaio’s chief investigator, addresses the issues relating to the fact that the evidence shows that the image file of the document was “manufactured” and that the investigation – which is ongoing – has revealed where the computer file resided (or was “parked”) twenty minutes before it was uploaded to the Internet.  Zullo also notes at 1:07:45 of the video that the investigators would like to “find the person who pressed the upload button and work backwards.. and we’ll probably find him.”  Soon, this could get really interesting.

Indeed, at the press conference, Mr. Zullo stated that from the outset, the request had been to “show me the microfilm” (see  Zullo’s remarks at the 42:40 point in the video).  Sheriff Arpaio reiterates his request to “show me the microfilm” at 59:30 into the video.  In the absence of the original paper certificate of live birth, the “best evidence” of the same would be found in the original reel of microfilm maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health.  Indeed, a host of remaining questions dogging the posted image of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate, as well as anomalies between that image and other persons’ birth certificates  similarly preserved on microfilm, would be answered.

Two days after the press conference, the Arizona Republic published a letter to the editor criticizing Arpaio for premising his investigation upon and drawing his conclusions based on an analysis of a computer image and stating, amazingly, that “[u]sing the pdf scan of a document is absurd. Scanning can break a document into layers separating text and graphics.”  The letter goes on to state: “The only way to determine the authenticity of an old birth certificate is to have an expert skilled in the art inspect the original document and use a tool like an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to examine the document at the molecular level.”  Wow… must be something in the water out there in Arizona.

Duh: when the only thing Obama has produced as “evidence” of his birth in Hawaii is a computer image, rather than a paper “old birth certificate” or newly-minted .pdf file of a document claimed to be a certified copy of same, all Arpaio did was analyze what the White House itself made available.  Perhaps the author of the letter to the editor can persuade Mr. Obama to remove the .pdf scan of the certificate from the White House website, because to leave it there would be… “absurd.”

What all of this means, of course, is that, far from anything even close to a “debunking” of the anomalies, the mainstream media’s predictable, deflective reaction will only continue to stoke the flames of controversy over Mr. Obama’s claims that, not only was he born in Honolulu, Hawaii – a fact which, even if true, would not correct his ineligibility under the Constitution – he deserves a second term. Respectfully, he has not demonstrated that he was constitutionally eligible to the first term, despite the smoke and mirrors efforts of the Congressional Research Service to shore up his story, so how can he legitimately lay claim to a second one?  If Obama and his supporters think this issue is buried and won’t affect the upcoming campaign, they are profoundly mistaken.

Joe Arpaio and Mike Zullo are on the right track.  If they can get into their possession Obama’s original Hawaiian paper birth certificate or the 1961 microfilm reel – not just the single frame where Obama’s birth certificate has been sandwiched – their investigation could hit paydirt.  If, in fact, these documents confirm what Obama and his supporters have claimed all along, then the issue of his birthplace – not to be confused or equated with the separate and independent question of his constitutional eligibility – will (or should be) put to rest.  As for privacy and confidentiality claims which might be interposed by the Hawaii Department of Health in producing the microfilm reel, that objection could be laid to rest by an agreement that the reel would be sealed to any public disclosure and/or could be subjected to in camera review by an impartial judge prior to being turned over to Arpaio.

Since Mr. Obama’s lawyers have assured us that the certificates themselves were intended to be made “publicly available,” surely there could be no further confidentiality objections from him.  And the “sealing” or “in camera” options just mentioned should eliminate any confidentiality objections from others who were born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961.

The one thing, however, that Arpaio and Zullo should beware of is that if in fact the two certified copies of the original birth certificates requested by Mr. Obama April 22, 2011 actually exist, and even if they bear the authentic embossed Great Seal of the State of Hawaii, they should complete their investigation sooner rather than later.  With all of the continuing controversy boiling over regarding the issue, and with the general election now but 9 months away, look for an “October Surprise” from the White House in the form of the hard copy of the documents purportedly delivered in April 2011.  Assuming there is enough time between the “surprise” and election day, a thorough and independent examination of the “hard” document against the backdrop of the September 2000  Report of the Inspector General on Birth Certificate Fraud must be completed.  The potential for the counterfeiting and false certification of birth certificates is, to understate the problem, massive.

Accordingly, if Arpaio and Zullo are really smart – keeping up with the issue on sites like the Post and Email – they should anticipate this potential and immediately begin making demands that, if the hard certified copy actually exists, it should immediately be made available for forensic examination.  That would tend to necessitate a decision by the White House to “fish or cut bait” on producing the hard copy, assuming it exists, and eliminate the potential for the copy being the subject of the October surprise.

In summary, the Fourth Estate has forfeited any and all credibility it might once have had on this issue.  It now has none.  Zero.  Zip.  Zilch.  Stay tuned here, because the next few months could prove to be some of the most important and interesting in the nation’s history.