Arpaio probe could dwarf Watergate
by: Jeffrey T. Kuhner
WashingtonTimes.com
If Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse are
right about Obama's birth certificate, then the
president has perpetrated the most elaborate hoax in
U.S. history. Photo Credit:AP
America may be facing a constitutional crisis.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., has
made a startling declaration: President Obama’s
birth certificate is fraudulent. If true — and I
stress if — then this scandal dwarfs Watergate. In
fact, it would be the greatest political scandal in
U.S. history.
Recently, Sheriff Arpaio held a news conference. He
said that his team of independent investigators —
composed of former law enforcement officials and
reporters — have for months meticulously examined
the computer-generated birth certificate that Mr.
Obama revealed to the public in April 2011. Their
stunning conclusion: The document is a forgery. His
chief investigator, Mike Zullo, says that the
document is full of errors and omissions. In
particular, Mr. Zullo claims that numeric sections
are not filled out that otherwise would have been in
birth certificates from Hawaii during that time. But
other sections, such as those dealing with Mr.
Obama’s race and his father’s work and field of
study, are completed. Hence, Sheriff Arpaio’s
investigative posse definitively believes the birth
certificate is not authentic, but was manufactured
to provide Mr. Obama with a veneer of constitutional
legitimacy.
Sheriff Arpaio’s findings threaten to plunge America
into an unprecedented crisis. For if — and again, I
emphasize if — he is correct, then Mr. Obama has
perpetrated the most elaborate hoax in U.S. history.
A fraudulent birth certificate would mean that Mr.
Obama is ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief.
His presidency would therefore be legally and
constitutionally illegitimate.
The consequences would shake the country to its very
foundations. It would mean that he should be
immediately removed from office — impeached.
Moreover, every law and executive order passed under
his administration — Obamacare, the economic
stimulus, the Dodd-Frank financial reform, the
government takeover of General Motors and Chrysler,
the granting of amnesty to nearly one million
illegal immigrants, the National Defense
Reauthorization Act, the drone assassination list —
would be null and void. The logic is inexorable:
Should the president’s legal authority be deemed
invalid, then everything resulting from it is also
baseless. The Obama presidency would be overturned.
Mr. Obama himself would be facing criminal charges —
and possible jail time — for committing fraud.
Yet, the birth certificate issue would repeal more
than the Obama administration. It would bring down
the entire liberal regime. The ruling elites — the
establishment media, the Hollywood left, the federal
bureaucracy, the myriad regulatory agencies, the
public sector unions, big banks and the financial
sector — have refused to seriously examine Mr.
Obama’s background. In fact, they have repeatedly
propped him up. He defends the liberal corporatist
status quo, constantly expanding government power.
This is why they are determined to destroy anyone
who seriously challenges Mr. Obama’s constitutional
authority. To simply inquire into the status of his
birth risks being called a “birther” — a kook and
conspiracy theorist akin to Holocaust deniers.
Having coddled and protected him, the ruling class
could not survive if Mr. Obama was exposed as a
slick con man. Their moral and intellectual
legitimacy would be discredited as well.
The topic has become toxic. Even Fox News refuses to
touch it. Many leading conservative radio talk-show
hosts ignore it. The editorial pages of the Wall
Street Journal mock so-called “birthers.” Meanwhile,
the liberal media continues to vilify Sheriff
Arpaio. He is being accused of racial profiling,
committing civil rights abuses and having failed to
effectively prosecute sex crimes. They allege he is
waging a baseless, personal vendetta against Mr.
Obama. Liberals are portraying him as a Southern
stereotype: a racist, out-of-control sheriff
determined to bring down a black president.
The very opposite, however, is the case. It was the
citizens of Maricopa County who through a petition
asked Sheriff Arpaio to investigate Mr. Obama’s
birth certificate. The sheriff is not the only one
with doubts. Many question the president’s status as
a natural-born citizen. Mr. Obama’s grandmother says
he was born in Kenya. This is echoed by Obama
relatives. Members of the Kenyan parliament have
repeatedly claimed Mr. Obama as their native son.
The Kenyan media asserts he was born in Kenya. For
nearly 15 years, Mr. Obama’s literary agent produced
a pamphlet describing him as being “Kenyan born.” In
his 2004 race for the U.S. Senate, wire stories —
including by the Associated Press — frequently
referred to Mr. Obama’s place of birth as Kenya. As
late as 2009, the Kenyan government sought to build
an official monument commemorating the site of Mr.
Obama’s birth (until the State Department ordered
the project be shuttered).
The president is a brazen opportunist; a political
hustler who mastered his craft on the streets of
Chicago. When it suited his interests to come across
as a cosmopolitan, multicultural liberal, Mr. Obama
pushed a Kenyan persona. When it was no longer
politically expedient, he abandoned it. Yet, Mr.
Obama cannot escape a fundamental dilemma: He either
lied then or he is lying now. He was either born in
Kenya (as he claimed during the 1990s and part of
the 2000s) or he wasn’t (as he has insisted since
2007). Both cannot be true.
At best, Mr. Obama is a shameless liar. At worst, he
is a foreign usurper.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner
is a columnist at The Washington Times and president
of the Edmund Burke Institute.