{"id":22212,"date":"2010-10-07T08:27:54","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T14:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=22212"},"modified":"2010-10-08T08:23:18","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T14:23:18","slug":"earth-to-pearce-obama-is-an-american-born-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/10\/earth-to-pearce-obama-is-an-american-born-citizen\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth to Pearce: Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

Republican mastermind Karl Rove believes President Barack Obama was born in the United States, is a citizen, and is a Christian. He said so when he was in Las Cruces several weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you believe Barack Obama is a born U.S. citizen?\u201d ABC newsman Sam Donaldson asked Rove during a session at the NMSU Domenici conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely. I also believe he\u2019s a Christian,\u201d Rove said. You can watch it beginning at 28:45 in this video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Donaldson was asking because of a poll released in August<\/a> that found that 27 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Republicans believe Obama was \u201cprobably\u201d or \u201cdefinitely\u201d born in another country. Another poll<\/a> showed that 18 percent believe Obama is a Muslim.<\/p>\n

Donaldson asked Rove why so many believe Obama was born in another country when that claim has been demonstrated to be false.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ask me to explain that,\u201d Rove said.<\/p>\n

Rove probably doesn\u2019t want to explain recent words from Republican 2nd Congressional District candidate Steve Pearce<\/a> either.<\/p>\n

At a Sept. 30 event in Los Lunas, a woman asked Pearce whether he is willing to support the subpoenaing of Obama\u2019s birth certificate. She also asked whether Pearce believes Obama \u201cis in fact a Kenyan-born, Indonesian Muslim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pearce said Obama \u201craised the most significant questions himself\u201d when he said he had traveled to Pakistan \u2013 at a time when, Pearce claimed, it was not legal to go there with a U.S. passport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose questions need to be asked,\u201d Pearce said. He said Congress has other priorities, like repairing the economy, and he\u2019s \u201ccontent to let the courts handle\u201d the question of Obama\u2019s citizenship \u2013 which he claimed the Supreme Court is doing.<\/p>\n

But if the Senate gets involved, Pearce said, \u201cI don\u2019t mind being in the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and I don\u2019t have a problem expressing my opinions or expressing a vote, either one,\u201d Pearce said.<\/p>\n

You can watch it here, courtesy of the Huffington Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The facts on Obama\u2019s citizenship and faith<\/h3>\n

The factual problems with Pearce\u2019s words, from the Huffington Post:<\/p>\n

\u201cPearce appears to be off on a few counts in his claims. In 2008, Obama mentioned a trip to Pakistan he took when he was 20 years old, which he hadn\u2019t written about his books. Skeptics of Obama\u2019s citizenship speculated that he went there with an Indonesian passport while his mother was married to an Indonesian man because Americans weren\u2019t allowed to travel to Pakistan at the time. As FactCheck.org reported, however, \u2018(T)hat claim is quite false.\u00a0There was no such ban<\/a>. Americans traveled there without incident, as shown by a travel piece that appeared in the New York Times in 1981, dated June 14. Barbara Crossette, an assistant news editor of the Times, told her mostly American readers they could travel to Lahore, Pakistan, by air, rail or road, adding: \u2018Tourists can obtain a free, 30-day visa (necessary for Americans) at border crossings and airports.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Additionally, the Supreme Court is not considering a birther case. Birthers\u00a0Orly Taitz<\/a> and\u00a0Phil Berg<\/a> have tried to bring high-profile lawsuits questioning Obama\u2019s citizenship, but they have been rejected each time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

More importantly, Obama is a citizen. This is a question that has been asked and answered. Politifact.com is among the news organizations that looked into the situation<\/a>. It obtained a copy of Obama\u2019s Hawaii birth certificate and verified with the Hawaii Department of Health that the birth certificate is valid.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s Christian faith has also been well documented<\/a>. Most recently, Obama explained during a trip to Albuquerque why he\u2019s a Christian. From The New Mexico Independent<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Christian by choice. My family didn\u2019t \u2014 frankly, they weren\u2019t folks who went to church every week.\u00a0And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn\u2019t raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life. And it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead: being my brothers\u2019 and sisters\u2019 keeper, treating others as they would treat me.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings \u2013 that we\u2019re sinful and we\u2019re flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God. But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does Pearce actually believe what he said?<\/h3>\n

Just like George W. Bush won the 2000 election, Barack Obama won the 2008 election. He meets the constitutional requirements to be president, and he is president. End of story.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to disagree with and fight against Obama\u2019s policies. But perpetuating false claims about Obama\u2019s citizenship, while perhaps politically beneficial for conservative politicians, helps empower those on the extreme, fringe right who may be willing to resort to violence.<\/p>\n

That statement is not an attack by me on the tea party or the far right. I, like others, have expressed concern<\/a> about the out-of-control spending in this nation. In my experience, most people in the tea party movement aren\u2019t crazy. But every movement has a few crazies.<\/p>\n

The words of political leaders like Pearce have the potential to set off those crazies. Politicians must be aware of that reality and approach it cautiously, or they risk playing a role in the incitement of violence.<\/p>\n

Pearce is intelligent. I\u2019m assuming, or at least hoping, that he knows Obama is a citizen. So I have to wonder if he was pandering to people whose votes he was trying to win with his statement in Los Lunas. If so, he\u2019s irresponsibly playing with fire.<\/p>\n

If, on the other hand, Pearce actually believes what he said in Los Lunas, well, that\u2019s an entirely different reason to be concerned about his candidacy for Congress.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Barack Obama\u2019s citizenship has been proven. Steve Pearce is spreading falsehoods about Obama, and his words have the potential to set off people on the extreme, fringe right who may be willing to resort to violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[108,116],"class_list":["post-22212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-2010-election","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}