Give Us Liberty: "Dear" Anderson Cooper...

I watched your “interview”—or shall I say your rant—with Lieutenant Colonel Lakin last night. I assumed you would be hostile, but I never anticipated the level of boorishness I witnessed. You are a disgrace to journalism—if one could even say you are in that profession.

You spoke for most of the eight minutes, repeatedly and rudely interrupting Colonel Lakin and his attorney. Your impolite demand that only Colonel Lakin answer your questions suggests you do not understand that a court martial in the Army is akin to a trial in civilian court. Colonel Lakin clearly has to be careful with his public statements because they can be taken out of context and misrepresented—as you were clearly eager to do. The contempt you showed for your guests was palpable, despite your obviously insincere praise of Colonel Lakin’s service—which you clearly tossed in only as cover for your attacks.

I have to admit that I had thought MSNBC's Chris Matthews was the king of rude interruptions, but you gave him some competition with your Lakin interview. (If Matthews refuses to give up his throne, perhaps you can settle for being queen.)

You and the rest of the media need to understand some basics:

A Certification of Live Birth (COLB) is a short form birth certificate, a mere abstract based on general information contained in a state’s computer files. It is not a long form birth certificate, which contains the details of the birth such as the baby’s height and weight, the name of the hospital, and the signature of the attending physician and witnesses. (Your statement that the state of Hawaii accepts the short form as proof of birth and citizenship is misleading; you neglected to mention that Hawaii has traditionally required the long form as documentation, but changed its rules after the controversies over Obama’s birth certificate arose. In other words, Hawaii is providing cover for Obama—as are you.)

If Obama’s birth was reported as an at-home birth (perhaps by his grandmother), the state of Hawaii would nevertheless have registered the birth, issued a birth certificate, and reported the event to the local newspapers for their published birth notices. Yet there would be no physician or hospital documentation. At-home births were much more common in 1961 than they are today, and Hawaii was no exception. Some assume that Obama is preventing the release of his long form birth certificate because it reflects an at-home, undocumented birth—which would further support suspicions that he was born somewhere other than Hawaii. (One can assume that Obama is not overly sensitive about his birth height or birth weight; thus one can only speculate about what he is hiding from the public. As Colonel Lakin’s attorney stated, if Obama releases the long form document he can end the speculation. That Obama is instead spending a fortune on attorneys to fight its release cannot help but lead people to wonder, “What is he hiding?”)

A natural born citizen is one who is born on U.S. soil to two U.S.-citizen parents.

A naturalized citizen is a citizen of another country who subsequently becomes a U.S. citizen.

A native born citizen is a citizen who was born on U.S. soil.

A citizen can be any of the above. But, just as all trees are plants, not all plants are trees. All citizens are not natural born citizens. The media has improperly (and perhaps intentionally) led Americans to believe that “born in the USA” makes one a natural born citizen. That is not the case.

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution reads: “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; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” If the drafters of the Constitution had intended that simply having been born in the United States was sufficient, they would have used the term “native born” rather than “natural born.” Further, there would have been no need for the words “or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution” to have been included. Those words were needed because in 1787 no one was a natural born of the United States. George Washington himself was not a natural born citizen of the United States. His parents were born in Virginia but were British citizens. Washington was also born in Virginia, but he was not a natural born citizen because his parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of his birth. Simply put, the language of Article II, Section 8 makes no sense if one interprets “natural born citizen”—as you and many others do—as meaning nothing more than having been born on U.S. soil.

Despite the fuss made over Obama’s birthplace, Obama’s place of birth is technically irrelevant. Even if he was born on U.S. soil, he is not a natural born citizen because his parents were not both U.S. citizens. The issue has nothing to do with what people “believe” about Obama’s place of birth. The issue is whether we should follow the U.S. Constitution and its inclusion of the term natural born citizen—a term which has historically never meant anything but being born on U.S. soil to two U.S.-citizen parents. That you and many other Americans have not read and do not understand the Constitution does not mean it should be ignored or discarded.

Relevant or not, Obama is clearly hiding his long form birth certificate because it contains something he does not want made public. And you are misleading viewers—intentionally, no doubt—by trying to confuse the short form birth document with the long form birth certificate, and by using the concept of native born as though it means natural born; it does not.

This is not a partisan issue or a race issue, despite media propaganda to the contrary. It is a Constitutional issue. Obama’s politics and race are irrelevant to the issue of his eligibility to serve as president. The Republican Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, is also ineligible to serve as president—even though media pundits and news anchors continue to mention him as a possible candidate in 2012. Governor Jindal was born in the United States, but his parents were not both U.S. citizens at the time of his birth. They were in the United States on student visas, and they later became naturalized U.S. citizens. I do not doubt their patriotism or love of this country, or the Governor’s. And I would certainly rather he be in the Oval Office than Obama. But the U.S. Constitution should either be followed—or we are a lawless nation ruled by whim. You may prefer whim; I prefer the law of the land. Jindal cannot be president; Obama should not. He is an illegal usurper of the office. Colonel Lakin knows it; I know it; and objective Constitutional scholars know it. The Justices of the Supreme Court also know it—but they are no doubt fearful that they will be forced to rule on the issue.

I challenge you to conduct an interview with attorney Mario Apuzzo and me. Mr. Apuzzo is attorney for the plaintiffs in various Obama eligibility challenges. I am the author of The Obama Timeline. (What you clearly do not know about Obama and the issue of birth certificates and natural born citizen terminology can be found in my book or in Mr. Apuzzo’s writings.) Spend some time allowing Mr. Apuzzo and me to explain the issues reasonably—without the obvious fear of the truth you portrayed in last night’s interview—and your (diminishing number of) viewers will be well served. I cannot speak for Mr. Apuzzo, but I am willing to appear on your program if you allow me the time to rebut your misstatements, and if you can calm down long enough for me to complete sentences without interruption.