President-elect Barrack Obama promised change. Who could have suspected that his "change" would involve dismantling the Constitution of the United States?
Article two, Section one, of the constitution sets forth the qualifications for an individual to serve as president of these United States and there are serious, unanswered questions as to whether or not Mr. Obama meets these qualifications. If he does, in fact, meet the qualifications, it would seem to be a simple matter to prove his eligibility.
The state of Hawaii says that it cannot release his original birth certificate data to any but a person who has direct involvement in the event. No one would have more direct involvement than Barrack Obama himself. He has but to obtain the original document and release it to the press in order to allay suspicions on that front.
To dispel rumors that he entered college using the name given to him in Indonesia, his registration papers could easily be made available. His return to the United States from indonesia required him to have some sort of passport in his possession. Records of that travel and it's documentation have almost certainly not disappeared into the ether.
The web has been flooded with claim and counter-claim concerning Mr. Obama's citizenship, and his eligibility to hold the highest office in the land. Unfortunately the document that so many of us turn to as the final word on matters of political law, the Constitution, is silent on the subject of requiring proof of eligibility from political candidates. It is left up to their respective parties to nominate only those who are eligible to serve.
Mr. Obama is not the first candidate to be questioned about his right to hold office under the natural born citizen clause. Everyone remembers John McCain having to address this question during the recent campaign, but he and Mr. Obama are not the only ones to be so questioned. Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona Territory, in 1909, three years before it became a state. He faced the same challenges as Barrack Obama and it was conceded at the time that he did, indeed, meet the citizenship qualifications. George Romney was born in Mexico. The question of eligibility came up when he ran in 1968 but was never put to a test. President Chester Arthur was plagued with rumors that he had been born in Canada, not Vermont, and was therefore an illegal president. There was even a popular book at the time, "How a British Subject became President of the United States" by Arthur Hinman.
Others have eloquently made the case for Mr. Obama's lack of qualifications to be president. I am not seeking to plow that same ground. I don't know whether or not Barrack Obama meets the constitutional test to serve in the office to which he has been elected. The consensus among his many supporters is that he does. The political machine that has chosen him, and has elevated him to his present position will, in their vested interest, do anything necessary to disprove the rumors surrounding his citizenship.
My point is that our nation is faced with the possibility constitutional crisis beyond the scope of anything in our past. This is a serious situation, not likely to just disappear under the rug in order to convenience those who feel that Barrack Obama is the only person capable of solving all the nation's problems and of leading us, skipping and singing, into a land of perpetual bliss.
This controversy tests whether or not our Constitution has any meaning left. Our founding document has been assaulted and assailed by special interests and self-serving politicians almost from the time the ink upon it was still drying. If our Supreme court does not now take a stand, and rule that the stated qualifications to be president, by their very inclusion in the Constitution, imply the responsibility that they be vetted, it will hammer yet another nail into that document's coffin.
President-Elect Obama, assuming the attacks on his qualifications are without basis, could very easily put the whole matter to rest. He has it in his power to squelch his accusers, item by item, simply by raising the veil of secrecy that shields so much of his past. No legal requirements will force him to do so but, in the interest of harmony and as a step toward truly unifying the nation, it would seem to be the prudent course.
If, on the other hand, he cannot prove his eligibility to serve as President, I fear that day when a smoking gun emerges and we have to deal with the upheaval such an event will cause.