The Manchurian Candidate?
With the birther arguments picking up steam again, it’s not a bad idea to try and anticipate some of the new arguments that might be coming out in the next little while. Though the birth certificate controversy has been brewing since shortly after Obama announced his candidacy, the arguments have changed – a year ago you couldn’t swing a dead cyberspace-cat without hitting a blog post claiming that Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate is a forgery, but that argument has largely fallen by the wayside. Now the focus seems to have shifted to ways in which he could have obtained it from the government (other than, of course, being born in Hawaii).
One talking point that’s been popping up sporadically for a few months, but seems to be gaining traction recently, is the birth certificate of Sun Yat-sen, the father of Republican China. Sun spent a great deal of time in Hawaii in his youth, and his early exposure to Western culture (via missionaries and British and American visitors) played a part in shaping his later political views. After the islands’ annexation by the US he was able to obtain American citizenship through a fraudulent birth certificate. Though Sun was born in the Guangzhou prefecture of China, and did not visit Hawaii until the age of thirteen, he was apparently able to find enough people to submit false affidavits to the contrary, allowing him to obtain a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth.