WND

By Bob Unruh

Six years after the first lawsuits were filed alleging Barack Obama is not constitutionally eligible to be president, a new poll indicates nearly one-quarter of American adults don’t even believe he’s a U.S. citizen, let alone a “natural-born citizen,” and another 17 percent are unsure.

Rasmussen Reports found 41 percent of Republicans believe Obama is not an American citizen, a belief shared by 21 percent of those who are unaffiliated and 11 percent of Democrats.

“Just over 20 percent of Republicans and unaffiliated adults also are not sure, but only 7 percent of those in the president’s party share that doubt,” the polling organization said in a report titled “Have We Got A Conspiracy for You – 9/11? JFK? Obama’s Citizenship?”

Overall, 23 percent said the theory that Obama is not an American citizen is true, and another 17 percent said they weren’t sure. Sixty percent reject the theory as false.

The Constitution requires the president to be a “natural-born citizen” but does not define the term. Scholarly works cited by the Founders defined it as a citizen at birth by virtue of being born in the country to two citizens of the country, or merely the offspring of two citizens of the country. The birth certificate Obama displayed on the White House website, which declares he was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father, has been found to be fraudulent by an investigation authorized by Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted July 16-17 with a sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points and a 95 percent level of confidence.

The survey ask for responses regarding “the world’s best-known conspiracy theories” regarding JFK’s assassination, the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Princess Diana, UFOs in Roswell, Paul McCartney and the AIDS virus.

While no state or federal judge allowed the presidential eligibility issue to be resolved in court, rejecting most cases out of hand, two members of the Alabama Supreme Court asserted it needs to be addressed.

While the majority in a 7-2 decision on a dispute over Obama’s eligibility issued “no opinion,” Justice Tom Parker and Chief Justice Roy Moore concluded the allegations have serious constitutional significance warranting an investigation of the qualifications of 2012 presidential candidates by Alabama’s secretary of state.

Moore wrote in his dissent that the circuit court should have granted the plaintiffs’ request to order the state secretary of state “to implement the natural-born-citizen requirement of the presidential-qualifications clause in future elections.”

“Although the removal of a president-elect or a president who has taken the oath of office is within the breast of Congress, the determination of the eligibility of the 2012 presidential candidates before the casting of the electoral votes is a state function,” Moore argued.

He said the case was of “great constitutional significance in regard to the highest office in our land.”

“Should he who was elected to the presidency be determined to be ineligible, the remedy of impeachment is available through the United States Congress, and the plaintiffs in this case, (Hugh) McInnish and (Virgil) Goode, can pursue this remedy through their representatives in Congress.”

Parker agreed with Moore’s reasoning, except that he would call for the secretary of state to investigate eligibility issues once she “has received notice that a potential candidate may lack the necessary qualifications to be placed on an Alabama election ballot.”

Both justices had expressed concern about the issue.

Parker had filed a special, unpublished concurrence in an earlier court ruling, arguing that plaintiff Hugh McInnish’s charge of “forgery” was legitimate cause for concern.

“Mclnnish has attached certain documentation to his mandamus petition, which, if presented to the appropriate forum as part of a proper evidentiary presentation, would raise serious questions about the authenticity of both the ‘short form’ and the ‘long form’ birth certificates of President Barack Hussein Obama that have been made public,” he wrote.

Moore, in an interview with WND in 2010, defended Lt. Col Terrence Lakin’s demand that Obama prove his eligibility as commander in chief as a condition of obeying deployment orders.

Lakin was stripped of his rank and removed from the military when he demanded to see evidence that Obama was a legitimate commander in chief of the military before carrying out deployment orders. He reasoned the orders would be illegal if Obama was not eligible to be president.

At the time, Moore said Lakin “not only has a right to follow his personal convictions under the Constitution, he has a duty.”

Read all the arguments in the birth certificate controversy, in “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” and check out the special reports, banners and bumper stickers on the subject.

“And if the authority running the efforts of the war is not a citizen in violation of the Constitution, the order is unlawful,” he said.

In the 2010 interview with WND, Moore said he had seen no convincing evidence that Obama is a “natural born citizen” and considerable evidence that suggests he is not.

“This is the strangest thing indeed,” he said. “The president has never produced [evidence] in the face of substantial evidence he was not born in our country. People are accepting it blindly based on their feelings, not on the law.”

Moore explained that the Alabama case did not request a judicial determination of Obama’s eligibility but an order that the elections officials in the state assure voters that candidates were eligible under the law.

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