Many Obama birth certificate queries yanked from 'transparency' debate

White House 'dialogue' site scrubbed of eligibility posts
Many Obama birth certificate queries yanked from 'transparency' debate

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: June 02, 2009
8:43 pm Eastern


By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily



One 'top-rated' listing features more than 550 'looks promising' votes on the Obama eligibility issue


With more than 200 individual threads and thousands of comments on the eligibility issue alone, moderators of the White House website on "open government dialogue" have been working tirelessly to edit the dialogue about Barack Obama's elusive "long-form" birth certificate.

Many of the top-rated threads are from citizens calling on Obama to release his birth certificate. The postings in the "top rated" category have received the most "looks promising" votes from users. New threads on the topic of Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve as president are appearing by the minute.

WND observed the "Making Data More Accessible" section for several hours as more suggestions appeared and at least 60 were subsequently deleted on the first page alone – all requests for the president to submit proof of citizenship.

One deleted post echoed many others in asking President Obama to "Prove that you are a U.S. citizen and valid president."

The post asks why Obama doesn't simply release his "real birth certificate and end all of this controversy."

"Are you a fraud?" it asks. "Is your election to the highest office in the land the largest scam ever pulled on the American people? Are you really not eligible for office? End the speculation and prove who you are."

Let Obama and everyone else know you care about the Constitution. Take part in the WND's "Where's the Birth Certificate?" billboard campaign!

Another removed thread titled, "Where is the Obama legal documentation to prove who he actually is?" asked the president to provide the following documents: original, vault copy birth certificate, records of attorney fees, marriage and divorce records for Obama's parents, passport, adoption records, school records and various other documents.

One displeased user who had his post deleted wrote, "I posted a comment about the lack of transparency in President Obama's administration and history, and down it came in minutes. So much for a open dialogue or, for that matter, freedom of speech."

Another man suggested U.S. citizens consider a class-action lawsuit against President Obama until he surrenders his documents. His post stated, in part:

Dear President, If only you would show us your long form birth certificate that shows location (hospital) of birth as well as attending physician info.
Be it duly noted that We the People of this constitutional republic do hereby note many of the abuses of power that you and your administration's representatives are currently engaged in.

We the People do hereby certify that we are considering all legal options available to restrict your audacity to run roughshod over the Constitution, abuse of power and office, as well as spending too much friggin' money when we are, as a nation, broke. …

His post was subsequently deleted.




"Who would have thought that even contemplating such action would be required against a sitting president and administration? A class-action approach may be the only viable way to force reporting in the mainstream press," he told WND.

Meanwhile, a thread titled "Contact the media to get it out in the open that the 'birthers' are a racist terrorist organization practicing electronic espionage" remained in place for much of the day while messages from the so-called "birthers" were removed. It has now been flagged. A link for providing news tips to CNN accompanied the message.

However, at least 200 threads urging Obama to prove his eligibility still remain.

The website dialogue is hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration. Its website says it operates a moderation policy "to ensure that your comments are appropriate and not harmful to others." Comments on the Open Government website may be deleted if they include the following:

Threats or incitements to violence
Obscenity
Duplicate posts
Posts revealing your own or others' sensitive/personal information (e.g., Social Security numbers)
Information posted in violation of law, including libel, condoning or encouraging illegal activity, revealing classified information, or comments which might affect the outcome of ongoing legal proceedings
"Moreover, while we invite open participation and diverse viewpoints to be shared, the main goal of this dialogue is to answer the overarching question: How can we strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness by making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative?" the National Academy of Public Administration website states. "Moderators therefore reserve the right to remove posts which are not 'on topic' or do not address some aspect of that question. Our desire is to remove as few posts as possible while ensuring that a focused, constructive discussion takes place."

The "brainstorming" phase of public engagement in policymaking is coming to a close at midnight tonight as the suggestions are compiled for a "discussion" phase.

But despite the resounding popularity of the subject of Obama's eligibility, it is still undetermined whether the topic will be included in the next phase.

"Our goal is to use the ideas from this first phase of the process as well as other input to inform deeper discussion on the Open Government blog in the Discussion phase," a message posted on the White House website states. "While the voting on the brainstorming submissions will be instructive, it will not determine which topics are discussed in the second phase. Rather, the Discussion is designed to dig in on harder topics that require greater exploration or refinement."

The website will keep the "brainstorming" portion active and open to public participation through June 19, but new posts may not feed into further discussion.

As WND reported, on Sunday night only 30 percent of respondents in one of the 200 forums demanded the president release the document. But that number exploded to nearly 80 percent the following day after WND alerted the public to the White House resource.

The entire transparency portion of the website has been overrun with citizens demanding presentation of the long-form birth certificate. Every one of more than 200 threads features dozens – and even hundreds – of people in agreement that Obama should release the document.