One Simple Question

One Simple Question

Washington DC

When I was a kid growing up in Japan, our parents told us `You can do anything, you can become anyone . . . . except President of the United States.`

We all knew that there was one thing we could never accomplish because we were born in Japan.

As we come down to the wire on the election with so many issues, positions and ideas to evaluate, there seems to be one that trumps them all.

The answer to the simple question that I along with many other `foreign born` Americans have lived with all our lives – where were you born?

Amazingly, one the most basic premise for the upcoming election - the simple question `where were you born` as relates to Barack Obama remains unproved.

Sitting in a coffee shop this morning in Washington DC, I spoke with 23 year old Obama supporter Patrick Boland.

When told of the unsubstantiated rumors regarding Barack Obama`s birth, Boland said

`I had not heard that. While I would still support Barack Obama, that is something that would concern me.`

The unsubstantiated rumors are quite simple and stark.

1. Barack Obama was born in the city of Mombasa, Kenya at the Coast Provincial Hospital and taken later via Seattle to Hawaii and his Grandmother was present at his birth.

2. Barack Obama was taken to Indonesia by his Indonesian Father where he could not have gone to unless he was an Indonesia Citizen and registered in school as Indonesia.

3. Barack Obama attended University on a Foreign Student Scholarship.

There is one hint on the Barack Obama Website, under the `Fight the Smears` link.`

It says, `Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. Citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan Citizenship automatically expired on August 4, 1982.`

The Obama Campaign confirms on their own website that until 1982, Senator Barack Obama was in fact a Kenyan Citizen.

The Constitution is very clear that one of the three qualifications for becoming president is to be a `natural born` American citizen.

What is most amazing is that to date, Barack Obama has not produced an official copy of his Birth Certificate.

What is produced is a copy of a `Certification of Live Birth`, which is not a Birth Certificate, but simply an `after the fact` Certification that anyone can receive following a birth.

Even more shocking is a complete lockdown on any information ranging from his birth certificate from Hawaii to his school records at Occidental College, Harvard and Columbia to any records from Kenya or Indonesia.

This just does not stand well.

Put aside for a moment all the policy matters and positions ranging from taxes to abortion to Iraq.

The most important question facing us in this election is `where were you born`.

Why does it matter?

First, obviously because if you are not `natural born` you cannot become the President of the United States as all of us `foreign born` kids learned a long time ago.

Second, though, and more concerning is the simple fact that if you are not honest about the single most important fact in an election than all the rest comes into question.

There remains one, extremely simple question that deserves one simple proof.

Before you vote, ask yourself the stark question.

Why has not Barack Obama produced the single most important document of the election – his birth certificate.

The answer to all other questions should flow from that answer.

Ken Joseph Jr.

www.kenjoseph.com