Could This Be The Bombshell?

I'm seeing some interesting stories here and there about another potential controversy in the making for Barack Obama.  The question of the day is: is Barack Obama an American citizen?

Hard to believe, isn't it?  Jim Geraghty has the details at his NRO blog:

Having done some Obama-rumor debunking that got praise from Daily Kos (a sign of the apocalypse, no doubt), perhaps the Obama campaign could return the favor and help debunk a bunch of others with a simple step: Could they release a copy of his birth certificate?

Reporters have asked for it and been denied, and the state of Hawaii does not make such records public.

The campaign cited the birth certificate in their "Fact Check" on William Ayers, so presumably, someone in the campaign has access to it.

(Apparently the lack of birth certificate, which would state the time of birth on August 4, is driving the astrologers nuts, as they need his birth time to calculate… whatever it is they calculate.)

There are several (unlikely) rumors circulating regarding Obama's birth certificate.

Rumor one: Obama was born in Kenya. Rather unlikely, as it would require everyone in his family to lie about this in every interview and discussion with those outside the family since young Obama appeared on the scene. However, if it were true, it would probably raise a major question of "does he qualify as a natural-born citizen"? If Obama were born outside the United States, one could argue that he would not meet the legal definition of natural-born citizen under because U.S. law at the time of his birth required his natural-born parent (his mother) to have resided in the United States for "ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16."

Ann Dunham was 18 when Obama was born – so she wouldn't have met the requirement of five years after the age of 16.

(Interestingly, apparently there isn't much paperwork on Obama's parents' marriage. Obama: From Promise to Power, page. 27: "Obama later confessed that he never searched for the government documents on the marriage, although Madelyn (Obama's maternal grandmother) insisted they were legally married." Also note that Obama's father apparently was not legally divorced from his first wife back in Kenya at the time, a point of contention that ultimately led to their separation.)

Rumor Two: Obama's middle name is not "Hussein" but "Muhammad."

As Politifact notes, all available public records going back to 1991 refer to the candidate as "Barack H. Obama."

It is theoretically possible, if not plausible, that Obama changed his name at some earlier point in his life, as he was sorting out his issues of culture and identity. But this would mean that Obama recognized how emotionally-charged the name "Muhammad" would become in American life long before the 9/11 attacks. And if you're going to change your middle name from that of the central figure in Islam because you fear controversy, picking the last name of the highest-profile anti-American dictator in the Middle East (Saddam) doesn't seem like a huge improvement.

Rumor Three: His mother did not want to name him after his father, and his birth certificate says "Barry." Perhaps the most plausible of the rumors, as Obama was known by that name through much of his childhood and young adulthood. If true, this would spur a new round of "When Barry Became Barack" stories – a minor headache for the campaign, but hardly a major scandal.

If the concern of the Obama campaign is that the certificate includes his Social Security number or some other data that could be useful to identity thieves, that information could easily be blocked out and the rest released. (Although I wonder if identity thieves would find Obama a tougher than usual target, since using the name on purchases would almost inevitably bring closer scrutiny.)

This is obviously a critical question because this could rule him ineligible to become President regardless of how many delegates he has.  The controversy has apparently come up before, but Obama has steadfastly refused to release his birth certificate.  It makes one wonder why, doesn't it?

Michelle Malkin preempts the inevitable response from the Obama campaign:

Lest the Obama campaign start whining about this issue being an unfair "distraction," John McCain underwent intense scrutiny of his citizenship status because of his birth in the Panama Canal zone, leading the Senate to declare him a natural-born citizen in April.

I have no idea how damaging this will be (if at all) to Obama, but it seems to me that this could be the rumored potential 'other shoe' dropping that was thrown around a few days ago.  Let me spin another layer on top of this scenario just for fun.

If Clinton knew about it, why didn't she use it?  Perhaps because that would have looked mean-spirited and underhanded.  Don't laugh - that's how the Democrat party works.  Everything has to look fair and nice.  And, probably more importantly, it would look like an 11th hour dirty trick that took the nomination away from Obama, thus completely alienating the core Democrat constituency: blacks.

So, how could she use this information to her advantage while still pulling the black vote back to her (voluntarily)?  She could swallow her pride and do the concession thing to make it look like she had the best interests of the party at heart while simultaneously leaking the information to someone else to make public.

Now, if it is proven that Obama can't become President, Obama is out and black vote can't accuse her of stealing the nomination from Obama.  She can graciously take up the mantle while fully expecting Obama's endorsement (because, after all, turnabout is fair play, right?).  Voila!  It kills two birds with one stone.

It's a bit of a conspiracy theory, I admit, but I don't think it's all that far-fetched, as conspiracy theories go.  Time will tell, I'm sure.  If nothing else, it's a juicy tidbit to consider.

There's my two cents.