Orly! I know you're reading this. After all, during your speech to the Costa Mesa Republican Assembly last night, while talking about your appearance on the Joy Behar show, you said something like “Joy Behar, who was, as this reporter here Mr. Kornbacher said… well, I won't use those words.”
Whoa! Kornbacher! Ok! And then when you were talking about the Washington Post story on you, you said that WaPo took lovely photos, and then pointed at me and said “unlike the ones you posted.”
Hey! I didn't take those photos!
But ok. Point taken. See? I'm not posting those other ones this time.
Since you won't take my phone calls anymore, Orly, let's talk here.
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First of all, congrats on making it to the Ayres Hotel in Costa Mesa for the meeting. When you posted about it beforehand on your blog, one of your followers got worried. “The Bill
Ayres Hotel?,” commenter Gabe Samoza wrote. “There must be some connection there. Can anyone find out
who the owners of the hotel are? I'm afraid it's a set-up and they will
bug the room or something.”
Yes, we found out the owners of the hotel. It's the OC-based Ayres family. I once interviewed Douglas Ayers about sailing; he did seem a little bit like a domestic terrorist. Luckily, Orly, you seemed to have emerged from one of his hotels unscathed.
Here's what I want to talk with you about: You've gotta stop lying to people who don't know any better.
The 20 or so people at the Costa Mesa Republican Assembly meeting seemed nice enough; they were mostly elderly, mostly white, very friendly to me. Grandmas and moms, doctors and lawyers. Sure, they had one speaker who home-schooled all twelve of his kids because he didn't like the way the Constitution was being taught elsewhere. The other speaker argued that cap and trade legislation is a toe in the door for the New World Order. But these people, their hearts aren't in the wrong place. They just want what they think is best for the country.
And I'll admit, Orly, you've gotten better with your lying. Ever since our cover story, you haven't talked in public much about that “Pakistan Travel Ban.” Hopefully, that's because we pointed out that it was fabricated. And after that Joy Behar post, which you read, I haven't heard you mention the “fact” that Hawaiian law in 1961 allowed foreigners to get birth certificates — maybe because we pointed out that it isn't a fact, and the law you had been talking about didn't exist till 1982.
But you're still misleading people. Or: You're lying to people. I wouldn't bother, except — and may be this is my delusion — you seem to be reading and altering your behavior when someone points out an egregious lie. So:
You sympathized with the constitutional home-school guy, telling the audience that it's because our kids aren't taught about the founding documents that no one realizes the real definition of “natural born citizen” entails having both an American father and mother. In truth, the reason that no one realizes it is because for all 200-and-some years of American history, that's simply not what “natural born citizen” has been understood to mean. A few people here and there have acted as though your definition is correct, but constitutional framers James Madison and Alexander Hamilton said otherwise. Popularly, certainly, the consensus has been that “natural born” simply means you've been a citizen from the day you've been born. You can argue that everyone's been wrong for 200 years and that Chester A. Arthur was never president, but it's dishonest to act as though your “interpretation” of natural born is settled law that simply hasn't been enforced.
And you, Orly, presented a new whopper last night, claiming that the Constitution specifically references De Vattel's Law of Nations. Craaaazy. Merely having written three words “law of nations” — in reference to, you know, the laws that nations have — does not mean that the Founding Fathers were leaving clues that your favorite Swiss philosopher holds the key to what the laws mean. As the homeschool constitutionalist dude said, the Constitution can be understood by reading documents like the Federalist Papers and the Common Sense. Maybe you noticed that Law of Nations was not on his list.
And even while you spend half your lecture talking about why it doesn't matter where Obama was born (“It could have been in the Lincoln Bedroom!”) because he's “ineligible” for having a British father, you then turn around and harp about how unconscionable it is that he hasn't given you access to every record he ever produced. It's a breathtaking, dishonest leap of logic. You act as though if he simply produces his long-form, this entire controversy would go away, even though you'd spent the last twenty minutes arguing why that's not true. What's more, your reasons to suspect he was born in Kenya have all been whittled away. The Pakistan travel ban, the maternal grandmother “confession,” the law about registering foreign-born certificates… they've all been disproven. And so you argue merely based on the tone of your voice, by throwing around words like “fraud,” and by spilling more half-truths and untruths.
No hospital has ever “claimed” Obama's birth, you say. Ever hear of privacy laws? A hospital can't just hand over the birthing file, and so for you to claim that no one could “find it” is a lie. Obama is the only one allowed to reveal where he was born — and he has done that! Remember the letter to Kapi'olani Hospital in Honolulu? The hospital published it; that's as much of a hospital “claiming his birth” as you're ever going to legally get.
Let me know if this stuff makes sense, Orly. See you next time.
