Kansas Birthers

NEW YORK TIMES (Blog)

By Lawrence Downes

September 14, 2012

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/kansas-birthers/

Birther alert: Kansas is considering tossing President Obama from the November ballot because it's not sure that he'’s a citizen. A citizen from Manhattan (Kansas) named Joe Montgomery filed a complaint to that effect, so the State Objections Board, controlled by Republicans, is duly looking into it. "“I don'’t think it'’s a frivolous objection,"” said the Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach.

Mr. Kobach is the man who wrote several state's’ "show-me-your-papers" immigration laws. Now he wants to see the president'’s papers. The board has asked the authorities in Honolulu, Arizona and Mississippi for documentation to help settle the question of whether Mr. Obama is a “natural born” citizen, since his father was Kenyan and, in the view of some conspiracy theorists, the Constitution'’s definition of “natural born” means having two citizen parents. They’'re wrong about that, but it hasn'’t stopped them.

Then there are the doubts about the authenticity of Mr. Obama'’s birth certificate, which — well, you know.

"“I do think the factual record could be supplemented,”" said Mr. Kobach, who is also an informal adviser to Mitt Romney.

(Mr. Montgomery has since withdrawn his complaint, saying that he had suffered “a great deal of animosity and intimidation” because of it, and that “he didn’'t wish to burden anyone” anymore. But the board is still planning to meet Monday to consider what to do.)

Not that we'’re inviting them, but the next time Mr. Kobach or Mr. Montgomery are in Manhattan (New York), they might just walk down Broadway to a housewares store called Fish's Eddy, which has started selling a serving dish displaying the long-form Obama birth certificate, in full color (pale institutional green). It probably won'’t convince birther Kansans, but it'’s only $19.95 and you can serve drinks on it.