Pajamas Media has done the work shooting down another false Obama rumor, this one spread by the notorious pro-Hillary website, No Quarter. It questioned whether Obama had registered for the draft, and thus whether he was allowed to serve in the executive branch.
PJM reporting:
After contacting the Selective Service System for an answer several times since late June, Pajamas Media obtained official confirmation from the Selective Service System via email that Barack Obama did indeed register for the Selective Service as required by law, and is eligible to run for the presidency.
Mr. Owens,
Barack Hussein Obama registered at a post office in Hawaii. The effective registration date was September 4, 1980.
His registration number is 61-1125539-1.
Daniel Amon Public Affairs Specialist
It is difficult to determine why no one had confirmed Obama’s Selective Service registration until now. The mainstream media may have had no interest in pursuing the story for a multitude of valid reasons. New media sources aligned with the Obama campaign may have had no interest in conducting an investigation that may serve to impede their selected candidate, and new media opponents may have simply found confirmation of his registration too difficult to obtain — some have suggested that they had contacted the Selective Service, only to be told they would have to file a request under the Freedom of Information Act, which rather notoriously may take months to complete. Perhaps others found it more useful to keep the rumor alive than put it to rest. But the conclusive answer is now known.
Barack Obama fulfilled his Selective Service obligation and has every legal right to run for the presidency of the United States.
It's unclear from the story whether or not Obama signed up a month later than he should have, but in any event, at that point he was legal to serve in the executive branch.
This is based on the assumption that this statement:
"The effective registration date was September 4, 1980."
is when he registered. Most likely, it reflects the time it took for the registration to be processed. I very much doubt that the federal bureaucracy of 1980 processed registrations the day that they were filed.
For those worrying about whether he's a Muslim, my Constitution also prohibits religious tests for public office.
On the other hand, he is a liberal loon who would destroy the economy, subvert the law and imperil the national security, and you shouldn't vote for him for that reason. But he is legally qualified to be President.
Now I'm waiting to hear that McCain is ineligible for the White House, since, while in the Navy, he failed to report for duty for FIVE &A HALF YEARS!
I have a friend who was caught trying to smuggle his girlfriend out of East Berlin when he was in grad school, as a result of which he was a guest of the East German state for two years. He reports that when he and some other prisoners were exchanged for a spy and he returned to the US in November, I think it was, his adviser, later mine as well, scolded him for registering late.
To be fair to NQ, this "rumor" there apparently consisted of one post on that site from July 1, abetted by a number of posts that included Obama's Selective Service records as among those records that have not been released by Obama -- and these posts were all concerned primarily with Obama's citizenship status.
In other words, no one took seriously the July 1 post that Obama might be ineligible had he failed to register; and its difficult to find anyone discussing the issue of Obama's draft status outside of the issue of his citizenship.
It only shows that his slightly-unbelievable claim of thing about signing up was completely unbelievable, and that's about it.
This is probably just a case of not remembering something from nearly 30 years ago with perfect recall.
This is probably just a case of not remembering something from nearly 30 years ago with perfect recall.
To suggest that this does not represent at least "rudimentary evidence" is to deny the obvious.
Now, sure, that can be explained away by saying that Obama's stepfather lied about Obama's citizenship for whatever reason -- but the fact that Obama refuses to release a slew of records that could settle the question once and for all is what fuels speculation. (My pet theory is that he was born under the name of Barack Durham for insurance purposes, and never had it legally changed -- but that's just a theory to explain why Obama is so reticent about releasing documents that should be made available as a matter of course.)
See my post above.
Ummm... that link reaffirms that he was born in Hawaii. Which means, by definition, US Citizen. So I'd say, no, it's not even rudimentary evidence.
Well, if he was an indonesian citizen, and was not "renaturalized"....
Why the assumption that Obama received financial aid? His grandmother, who was footing the bills, is reasonably well off.
If I remember right, you also had to certify that you registered when asking for any kind of college financial aid--something I personally did not do until 1982.
In the sepcific case of Obama, he was a minor when in Idonesia. How could he have legally renounced anything at that age.
I'd be happy to see the presidency restricted to those who, at the time of inauguration, are citizens of the US only, regardless of anything to do with Obama. But that does not seem to be the law today. And that's all that's relevant in this election.
Are you saying Obama would merely continue Bush's policies? I doubt it.
Heavens no. He could come up with his own bad policies if he really wants to.
People with "dual citizenship" are, from the point of view of U.S. law, American citizens only. It's just that they're also, from the point of view of the law of country X, citizens of country X only.
No state that I know of has a category in its domestic law ascribing both citizenship of that state and citizenship of another state to an individual. Dual citizenship is a conflict-of-laws phenomenon, not a status that a person has within one particular legal system.
There could be, I suppose, a constitutional amendment requiring presidents to renounce foreign citizenships before taking office. (Although I think it would be silly.) But whether foreign states would view that renunciation as valid is not something over which the candidate, or the United States, would have any control.
I dunno. He said he considered joining when he graduated and had to register in 1979. Turns out he actually registered either just before or after the start of his second year at Occidental College. He has said (and Occidental claims) that his two years at Occidental College were when he became an social activist and for that reason decided to go to Columbia.
I find it very hard to believe that he would misremeber whether or not he was interested in social activism or in military service during his second year of college and end up claiming both.
I think it was just a BS pandering statement.
I think that's wrong on two counts. First, as I recall it was a later addition to the law to require that male students have registered with the SSS to receive financial aid. I vaguely recall it coming down in my junior year in college (1982-83). Secondly, the "evidence" was a bit of a joke: you merely had to sign a statement (provided by the college on piece of paper) that said you'd registered, or you were not required to register because you were (choose one) a veteran, older than 26 or younger than 18, or a girl.
That last in particular was a subject of some contention at the time. People questioned rather stridently why there was this extra burden on male students.
In principle, the SSS could have checked up on your statement by cross-referencing their data with at least the D of Ed data on who got Federal grants, but, remember, this was long before the day of the Internet and Perl scripts. To do so would probably have required some Federal COBOL programmers to load 500 pounds of punched cards onto hand trucks and move them from building to building, then fire up the mainframe et cetera. I'm guessing they probably didn't.
It's entirely another to enlist to be part of a deterrence force.
IOW, Obama may have figured adding his miniscule "don't even think it, Ivan" to the existing force structure didn't justify two or three years of lousy food, bad accomodations (leftover Wehrmacht kasernes in Germany, ex.), and repetitive training.
Both are valuable, but for young guys with more thyroid--we're in polite company--than judgment, the latter is not particularly compelling.
Unless getting his dates wrong point to something serious, wtf is up with this?
CB55:You refuse to fight for this country. And you don't enjoy it anyway [but of course, you stay]. You're 4-F, and you're neither mentally nor physically fit.
Lemme guess: you're an Obama guy all the way, right?
My University was absolutely paranoid about draft registration. My only financial aid was a small scholarship from a private trust in my hometown, but it was disbursed by the financial aid office of my college, and that office required an interview and paperwork, including a signed affidavit of draft registration, before the scholarship was released.
AKD:
Obama registered at the beginning of his sophomore year which was exactly the point in which young men in his age cohort were first allowed to register in the revived system.
The title of the PJM article ("Did Obama Actually Register for Selective Service?") seems to be deliberately misleading for an article that actually debunks the rumour. A casual reader just scanning the page might well assume that the veracity rumour is still an open question.//
This would have been a good point, if we still had "casual readers."