Tabloid update: "What Obama's hiding from America"

The cover of this week's Globe tabloid promises to reveal "What Obama's Hiding From America," plus "8 shocking secrets" that will "wreck" the new president, "insiders believe."

Inside, the magazine uses blood-red capital letters to declare, "OBAMA UNDER SIEGE."

Let's hear it!

Wanna hear it again?!

You heard right, there's nothing in the story.

The Globe poses eight questions for our new president to answer, and then answers them for him.

"Where were you really born?" the Globe asks. Ostensibly in Hawaii, the magazine reports, although many people, including Obama's paternal grandmother, believe he was born in Kenya. "Reports have circulated," the Globe says.

"What is your REAL name?" the tabloid demands to know, and "Are you secretly a Muslim?" The Globe says "insiders claim" he once took the name of his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, when he was a child in school; and because his father and stepfather were Muslim, "That makes him a Muslim," according to "one source."

At this point, the Globe interrupts its make-believe interrogation of the president with a chirpy report about Dick Clark's health. Even they were bored with this stuff.

On page 34, the grilling resumes. "Why did you have your records at Columbia University SEALED?" the tabloid demands.

That's a good question, actually.

"Did you travel to trouble-torn Pakistan on an Indonesian passport at the age of 20?"

The Globe says some people believe this would call the president's citizenship into question. Maybe so, but America Wants To Know files it under "The least of our problems."

"Did you cheat on wife Michelle with both a man and a woman?"

The Globe quotes a guy named Larry Sinclair, described as "an ex-con from Duluth" who "failed a disputed lie-detector test about his allegations," saying he performed, um, an act on Barack Obama in the back seat of a limousine outside a bar in Chicago. Mr. Sinclair says this happened in 1999.

Of course it did.

The other cheating allegation involves "getting too close" to "gorgeous Vera Baker," an Obama fund-raiser who reportedly was exiled by our new first lady to the Caribbean island of Martinique. The Globe illustrates the story with an image of a newspaper clipping showing a photo of Ms. Baker wearing an ivory tank top. Her face is concealed with that digital block technique that's typically used to shield the faces of underage rape victims and anyone who refuses to sign a photo release.

However, this happened in 2004 and even the Globe only ranked it number six out of eight on their scandal list.

"When did you stop using drugs?"

The Globe uses seven paragraphs and a photo caption to tell us that President Obama quit using drugs when he was 18, unless you believe the ex-con from Duluth who failed a lie-detector test when he said there was cocaine in the back seat of that same limousine in 1999.

And finally, "Are you connected to the shooting death of Donald Young?

Donald Young was a choir director at Trinity United where Obama was once a member. Mr. Young was murdered on Christmas Eve, 2007, and the Globe says it has "at least one source" to confirm that he was shot because of "something he knew about Obama." The tabloid intones, "If Obama is really involved in a murder plot, he could wind up moving from the White House to the Big House."

They need new writers.

Much more interesting is the report on page 5 that Laura Bush has had plastic surgery and now looks "years younger" than she did as recently as June, 2008. "Her skin 'looks much smoother and more vibrant,'" according to Dr. Steve Pearlman, "Manhattan facial plastic surgeon and past president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic Surgeons." Dr. Pearlman speculates, based on photographs, that Mrs. Bush may have had a full facial chemical peel, a brow lift, an eyelid lift and a lower face lift.

You can tell right away that they don't teach Photoshop in medical school.

However, it does look like the Globe may have been right about Mrs. Bush's secret separation from her husband. Our former president admitted that his wife bought that house in Dallas without his ever setting foot in it or even seeing it. She showed him pictures, she told Larry King, after she closed the deal. On Saturday Mrs. Bush went to the house on Daria Place to check on renovations that are underway. She had some people with her. Her husband was not one of them.

Maybe we'll find out the truth one day, because Mrs. Bush says she plans to write a book, as does the former president, as does former Secretary of State and rumored presidential love interest Condoleezza Rice, who has inexplicably signed with the William Morris Agency.

She must have fallen for that line that they can get her into movies.

Let's hope our next peace negotiator is less gullible.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: Catch up on your tabloid reading with "Laura Gets $15m divorce deal" and "Where Obama was really born."

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Solving the mystery of Caroline Kennedy

The door to the America Wants To Know offices flew open on Friday night and Lieutenant Columbo stormed in, followed by Sam Spade, followed by Sherlock Holmes. Sam Spade was in handcuffs and Sherlock Holmes was holding a pistol.

"What is this," we asked, "a union meeting?"

"More like an interrogation," Columbo said. "Where's the sink?"

"There will be no waterboarding in this office," we said firmly. "The water leaks through the floor and then we have to meet the neighbors."

"All right, fine," Columbo said. He pulled a chair away from the desk and pushed Sam Spade into it. "Okay, Sam, let's have it. Why'd you dig dirt on Caroline?"

"I didn't dig dirt on nobody," Spade growled.

Sherlock Holmes leaned against the desk, cradling the pistol. "Is that a new Rolex, Sam?"

"What about it?" Spade said with a snarl.

Columbo wound up and slugged Spade across the jaw.

"That's for Caroline," he said. He hit him again. "And that's for Teddy."

Spade clenched his jaw and peered at Columbo through squinted eyes.

"I didn't dig dirt on nobody," he said in a low voice.

"Why did you do it, Spade?" Holmes asked. "Are you in financial trouble?"

Spade stared at the floor.

Holmes set the pistol on the desk. "You have a home in Palm Beach, don't you?" he asked blandly.

"What about it?" Spade snapped.

Columbo looked up. "Of course," he said. "That's it."

"That's what?" we asked.

"Our friend Spade got out of the detective racket five years ago," Columbo said. "'I'm through working for a living,' he told me. 'I joined a country club and made some contacts in business. Now it's all Easy Street.'"

"You don't mean...." we began.

"I sure do," Columbo said. "Sam Spade invested everything he had with Bernie Madoff."

"I got my check every quarter, without fail," Spade said miserably. "Every quarter. Without fail."

Sherlock Holmes shook his head. "You're such a schmuck," he said.

Everyone else in the room turned to look at Holmes.

"Sorry," Holmes said. "I've been spending quite a bit of time in Palm Beach of late. Beginning to pick up a few phrases of the local dialect."

Columbo grabbed Spade by the collar of his shirt and leaned in close. "All right, Spade, who hired you?" he said in a menacingly soft voice.

"You know who hired me," Spade said. "Let's not waste an hour and a half pretending you don't."

"Are you trying to put me out of business?" Columbo asked.

"It was Mrs. Clinton, of course," Holmes said. "A child of six could see it."

"Wait, slow down," we protested. "How do you know it was Mrs. Clinton?"

"Elementary," Holmes said. "Caroline Kennedy crossed the Clintons last January by endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. Hell hath no fury like a Clinton scorned, and the female of the species is particularly vicious. She has spilled the blood of more working women than Jack the Ripper."

"Well, that doesn't prove anything," we said. "Maybe one of Caroline's rivals for the Senate seat hired Spade to dig dirt on her. Maybe it was Andrew Cuomo or Carolyn Maloney."

"Not a chance," Columbo said.

"But how can you be sure?" we asked.

Columbo reached into the inside pocket of his weathered coat and pulled out a handful of folded news clippings.

"Timing," he said. "The also-rans would have dumped the stuff earlier. No, it was Mrs. Clinton all right. Look at this."

He spread the clippings out on the desk.

"Tuesday morning," he said, pointing to the first clipping. He began to read. "The whispers have become louder that Gov. David Paterson has come to a U.S. Senate seat decision -- and that it's Caroline Kennedy," he read. He tapped the paper. "And you'll notice in this same story that Senator Clinton's confirmation vote hit a little hitch over concerns about conflicts of interest from her husband's foundation."

"Come on, there was never any doubt she'd be confirmed," we said.

Holmes raised an eyebrow.

Columbo pointed to the second clipping. "Wednesday afternoon," he said. "The Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State on a 94-2 vote. She was immediately sworn in, right in her office in the Russell Senate Office Building. Her husband was waiting there with the family Bible."

Holmes raised the other eyebrow.

"It was then and only then," Columbo said, gesturing with his index finger, "that she submitted her resignation as senator. She sent a letter to Vice President Biden, as president of the Senate, and she sent an identical letter to David Paterson, the governor of New York."

"And that's when the deed was done," Holmes said. "It was Wednesday afternoon, after Hillary Clinton was safely confirmed as Secretary of State, that the dirt was dumped on the Kennedy woman."

Columbo scooped up the stack of clippings. "There was complete confusion Wednesday night over whether or not Caroline Kennedy had dropped her bid for Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat," he read. He leafed through the news stories in his hand. "This one says, 'She called the governor around midday Wednesday and told him she was having second thoughts about the job,' and this one says, 'Sources tell CBS 2 HD that the governor apparently found something in Kennedy's background check that he didn't like.' Here it says she was withdrawing, but here it says she's not withdrawing, and here it says she's got a personal issue that came up very suddenly."

Sam Spade laughed.

"And all this," Columbo said, "just hours after Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State."

"Less than an hour," Spade said.

"Now, wait a minute," we said. "What does any of this have to do with Hillary Clinton being confirmed as Secretary of State?"

Columbo gestured to Holmes to take over.

"It's quite simple, really," Holmes said. "President Obama wanted to reward Caroline Kennedy for being an early and loyal supporter. And Hillary Clinton wanted to destroy her for precisely the same reason.

"So President Obama nominated Senator Clinton to be Secretary of State, creating a vacancy in the Senate for Caroline. He used his influence to make it known that Governor Paterson would be making a very wise choice by appointing her.

"Hillary Clinton did not want Caroline to have that Senate seat, but she didn't want to move against her too early. There was always the risk that President Obama might suddenly decide that something in Bill Clinton's business dealings presented an insurmountable hurdle to her confirmation as Secretary of State. She had just seen Bill Richardson humiliated and forced to withdraw as Commerce Secretary, and she wasn't going to let that happen to her.

"So she bided her time. If President Obama wanted the Senate seat open for Caroline, he would have the Senate seat open.

"But Hillary Clinton intended to make certain that Caroline never occupied it.

"She waited until she was confirmed by the Senate. She waited until she was sworn in as Secretary of State. And then, before Governor Paterson could pick up the phone and tell Caroline Kennedy she was the next U.S. Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton released the hounds."

"What could she have had on her?" we asked.

Holmes looked at Sam Spade, still in handcuffs in the chair.

"It's gonna cost you a Rolex," Spade said.

Columbo was unfolding another clipping. "Two can play that game," he said. "This is from the Washington Times today. 'Former President Bill Clinton's foundation, despite identifying more than 200,000 of its donors in recent weeks, will not say who paid it windfall prices for stock in a struggling Internet firm with links to the Chinese government.'" He handed the clipping to Holmes.

"Ah, the Accoona Corporation," Holmes said. "A mysterious stock transaction in 2006 that was inexplicably profitable for the Clinton Foundation. Someone paid them $700,000 for their stock in a company that was nearly bankrupt." He looked up with a twinkle in his eyes. "Odd that this story should be in the newspapers now," he said. "Perhaps President Obama has a detective on the payroll as well."

"Nah, he's not hiring," Sam Spade said. "He's got the FBI files."


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Burying the Clintons," "Burying the Clintons, Part II," and "Hillary Clinton and the perfect crime."

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The untold story of the Oath of Office re-do

The White House press corps gave Robert Gibbs a very hard time Thursday, during the new press secretary's first White House press briefing, about the press pool's access to the re-do of the president's oath of office.

Again and again, reporters demanded to know why television cameras, radio reporters and independent photographers were not allowed into the White House Map Room to witness the newsworthy and perhaps even historically significant event.

If they would stop thinking about themselves for five minutes, they would see what's right in front of them, the obvious fact that President Obama was trying not to embarrass the Chief Justice of the United States.

Think about it. Twelve o'clock noon on January 20th was a moment for the annals of history, a moment that will be replayed forever alongside those grainy clips of Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial, a moment in time that will never be repeated. The world watched as Chief Justice John Roberts swore in the first African-American president of the United States, Barack Obama.

And John Roberts lived the actor's nightmare. He forgot his lines.

Actually, in the actor's nightmare he would also have been naked, so he can console himself that it could have been worse.

The point is that the Chief Justice of the United States suffered an embarrassment and the new president was sensitive to it. Did you see the clip of Vice President Joe Biden making a crack about the Chief Justice's memory? Did you see President Obama's horrified and icy reaction?

There can be no doubt, if you think about it, that the president excluded TV and radio reporters from the press pool to spare Chief Justice Roberts the further embarrassment of having an endless loop of his error on the news for the next twenty-four hours and perhaps for the next twenty-four years.

President Obama and his press secretary can't say that, of course. That would be even more embarrassing to the Chief Justice.

Alas, their best-laid plans went awry because a reporter for Bloomberg News recorded the event on a handheld audio cassette recorder and now everybody can listen to it on YouTube.

And if you listen to it, you'll hear something interesting.

You'll hear Chief Justice John Roberts emphasize a particular word in the oath of office.

This is the oath taken by the new president:

"I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God."

When Chief Justice Roberts said those words, he said them like this:

"...and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Maybe that little bit of emphasis doesn't mean anything at all.

Or maybe it's the way the Chief Justice is accustomed to reciting the words when he's having a discussion about the oath of office, immediately following a sentence that goes something like this: "The president's oath is not to preserve, protect and defend the United States. It's to...."

Maybe that's the kind of discussion the Chief Justice had after he learned that President Bush authorized warrantless wiretapping in violation of the Fourth Amendment, citing his duty to protect the United States.

Or maybe not.

But this much is certain. The Constitution requires the president to take an oath when he's sworn into office. The exact language of the oath is written in Article II, Section 1. And somebody -- either John Roberts or Barack Obama, or both -- refused to blow off the requirements of the Constitution with a casual, "Close enough for government work."

There's nothing embarrassing about that.


Copyright 2009

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One for the history books

Fox News Channel reported today that Barack Obama sent an advance draft of his Inaugural Address to historians David McCullough and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Why did he do it? Is he already lobbying for a good review from the Judgment of History?

One thing we've learned about our new president, he doesn't procrastinate.

If President Obama seeks the enthusiastic approval of historians, he doesn't have to go to the trouble of flattering the best-selling among them.

All he has to do is repeal Executive Order 13233.

That's the one that set aside the Presidential Records Act of 1978 to allow the current president, and all the former ones, to block the legally required public release of White House records twelve years after the conclusion of an administration.

Former President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13233 on November 1, 2001, halting the imminent release of the records of President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush.

Historians who had waited patiently to gain access to the records of the Reagan years complained bitterly, to no avail.

That's just one reason the president who left office today vowing that history will vindicate him should probably not hold his breath.

President Barack Obama can, with the stroke of a pen, restore the Presidential Records Act passed by the elected representatives of the people of the United States.

This will not guarantee that history ultimately will judge him kindly.

But it would be a very good start.

Copyright 2009

Update: Wow. He did it. On day one. "Executive Order 13233 of November 1, 2001, is revoked. BARACK OBAMA, THE WHITE HOUSE, January 21, 2009" Thanks, Mr. President.



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Tabloid update: "Where Obama was really born!"

America Wants To Know was in the supermarket checkout line yesterday when the Globe tabloid once again jumped from the rack and landed on the conveyor belt, right on top of the Rice Krispies.

"Where Obama Was Really Born!" the cover shouted. A red arrow pointed to a picture of a building with an ambulance parked in front of it. "In this hospital 8,000 miles from the U.S. -- New shocking charge! Is his inauguration against the law?"

An older woman in the checkout line ahead of us smiled at the tabloid cover and shook her head. She leaned in with the slightest twinkle in her eyes. "He's a foreigner," she whispered.

Well, as they say at the Treasury Department, we have to try something.

Inside, the Globe reports that "the Internet is abuzz with shocking charges that three different people have gotten their hands on a Kenyan birth certificate for Obama."

The document supposedly says the president-elect was born on August 4, 1961, at Coast Province General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya, not in Honolulu, Hawaii, as the Obama team keeps insisting.

The Globe talked to Dr. Christopher Mwanga, an administrator at the Mombasa hospital, who said they can find no record of the birth of a baby on August 4, 1961, by the name of Barack Hussein Obama. "We can neither prove that he was born here nor disprove it," Dr. Mwanga said.

The Globe also mentions that Obama's paternal grandmother has reportedly spoken of being in the delivery room when the president-elect was born. In Kenya.

America Wants To Know does not happen to believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

Why not, you ask?

Because Bill Clinton has made more than one trip to Africa, and if there was a birth certificate with Obama's name on it anywhere on that continent, he would have found it and given it to Fox News six months ago.

And because if the State Department had a passport file showing that Obama's mother was out of the country in 1961, Dick Cheney would have given it to Robert Novak three months ago.

So we're skeptical of skeptics who think the president-elect is foreign-born, but the question is an interesting one nonetheless.

Hypothetically, what would happen if someone got elected president and then was revealed to be foreign-born and ineligible to be president?

Nobody really knows.

The Constitution says in Article II, Section 1, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

But the Constitution isn't self-enforcing.

Probably the House of Representatives would have to vote on an article of impeachment and send the president to the Senate to stand trial.

Of course, if public opinion doesn't favor impeachment, that wouldn't happen.

Some citizen or organization or state government might be able to file a lawsuit seeking to have the president removed from office. Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court might issue an opinion declaring the president constitutionally ineligible to serve, but the Court has no enforcement mechanism for its decisions. If the president refuses to resign and the Congress won't impeach him and the public doesn't care, well, in all likelihood nothing would happen.

Except that Arnold Schwarzenegger would sue under the Equal Protection Clause and demand to be eligible to run for president.

The "natural born Citizen" requirement is surprisingly fuzzy in definition. There was a question some time ago about Senator John McCain's eligibility to run for president, because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father, a military officer, was stationed there.

Instead of laughing off the question, Senator McCain hired former Solicitor General Ted Olson to research the matter for him. And far from dismissing the matter as frivolous, Mr. Olson told the New York Times that while he didn't have much doubt about it, "he still needed to finish his research."

It appears that the meaning of the "natural born Citizen" clause has never been settled. New York Times reporter Carl Hulse put it this way: "Lawyers who have examined the topic say there is not just confusion about the provision itself, but uncertainty about who would have the legal standing to challenge a candidate on such grounds, what form a challenge could take and whether it would have to wait until after the election or could be made at any time."

Hypothetically, if the president-elect was lying about his age and had actually been born in Hawaii before it became a state, there could be an interesting debate over whether he was a "natural born" citizen or not.

Being born in Kenya would be something else entirely.

Hypothetically.


Copyright 2009

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Barney Frank picks your neighbors

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank told reporters today that he will introduce a bill on Wednesday to revise the giant federal bailout bill rammed through Congress a couple of months ago.

After the brief press conference, CNBC snagged Congressman Frank in the hallway and wired him up for a live interview to clarify a few points.

Most of the interview focused on Rep. Frank's proposal to ban bank executives from receiving bonuses or flying on private jets, but there was also this exchange with "Power Lunch" co-anchor Sue Herera:

Sue Herera: "Mr. Chairman, how do you anticipate the community lending aspect of this to work, there are those who would say that the government should not become a landowner and, um, basically administering homeownership, and there other others who say...."

Chairman Frank: W-Where are we, I don't know what you're talking about, what are you talking -- where are we becoming a homeowner in this?

Herera: In terms of community support. To buy up, money to go to municipalities....

Chairman Frank: Oh.

Herera: ...and communities to buy up foreclosed properties.

Chairman Frank: To buy up, like, property that was already foreclosed? The intention there is not for the municipalities to become landowners in perpetuity or even for a very long time, but to clear that inventory, to buy them and then make them available for other purposes, for workforce housing, for, uh, housing in some cases for the individual who lived there before, if that individual had been unfairly treated in the lending process, or to make them affordable housing. So, no, this is not to have the municipalities be the, uh, the longterm holders of the loans. I now have to go and vote on the floor."

With that, Chairman Frank took off the microphone and ended the interview.

Hey, Democrats, did you catch that?! Workforce housing? Affordable housing?

Chairman Frank is about to introduce a bill that would turn foreclosed homes into government housing for poor people!

Maybe right down the street from people who used to vote for you!

Don't send out the laundry!

No doubt when this proposal goes down in flames someone -- all right, everyone -- will claim that racial prejudice is behind the opposition to "economic integration" of neighborhoods.

But as it happens, there is a larger principle at stake: In a free society, goods are rationed by price, not by power.

Chairman Frank wants to use government power to give some people, and not others, an unearned benefit. He wants the government to give selected people a house they can't otherwise afford.

There are at least three categories of voters who will be rightfully angry about this:

-- People who worked, saved and diligently maintained good credit so they could live in the house next door, or one just like it.

-- People who can't afford to live in the house next door and resent the government reaching down below them on the economic scale to push some other family up and into that house.

-- People who believe they are equally entitled to a free house in a nice neighborhood and are angry that the government gave it to someone with more political pull.

Chairman Frank apparently believes he can use the fiscal emergency to get around the ever-present opposition to locating "affordable housing" in upscale neighborhoods. Lots of people who putter around in ivory towers think it is appalling that public housing is always clustered in rundown areas of the cities and believe society is best served by building affordable housing units in all neighborhoods, regardless of property values.

What do you think?

Do you think the government should use your tax dollars to buy foreclosed properties and turn them into "workforce housing" or "affordable housing" for selected poor people?

Why don't you give Chairman Frank a call? His number is (202) 225-5931. Or contact your representative in Congress at (202) 224-3121 (you can find your representative's name and direct phone number at www.House.gov).

Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier post, "The unintended consequences of a terrible idea."

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