October 31, 2008 State of Hawaii Director of Health Department Statement Raises More Questions About Barack Obama Birth Certificate

The more I look into the statement apparently released to a small group of selected news agencies yesterday, October 31, 2008, by the State of Hawaii Director of Health Department Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the curiouser and curiouser it becomes.

1. I have been unable to discover the actual statement released by Dr. Fukino anywhere on the web.

It's not listed on the State of Hawaii Department of Health website:

http://healthuser.hawaii.gov/health/about/pr/pressdate.html which shows the most recent press release as being issued October 22, 2008.

Current Year 2008 News Releases

The following is a listing of press releases issued by the Department of Health's Communications Office during the current year. Earlier releases can be found in a separate master listing. For more information DOH press releases or other communication matters, call 586-4442.

October 22, 2008 DOH CITES COMPANIES FOR AIR POLLUTION VIOLATIONS

October 22, 2008 HAWAI'I RECEIVES $1.5 MILLION FOR YOUTH SUICIDE PREVENTION

2. The statement was released to only three sources, apparently: The Associated Press, Pacific Business News Service, and a local Hawaii television station.

3. I cannot determine if an actual press conference was held, or if a statement was merely released.

4. The statement was released on "election eve Friday" on a day when the Department of Health was apparently closed. (They moved to a trial 4 day work week earlier this month). It has the feel to me of the last act in a carefully staged political passion play designed to create the impression that a long form original birth certificate from 1961 signed by an attending physician at a Honolulu hospital exists in the vault of the State of Hawaii Department of Health. Maybe it does. But this statement by Dr. Fukino does not say that.

Take a close look at her actual words, as quoted in the AP, Pacific Business News, and the local Hawaii television station:

"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai'i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

I have attached below the transcript from the on air report at Honolulu television station (KGMB, Channel 9) that reported this story yesterday:

Hawaii's top health official is trying to stop a rumor about Barack Obama that says he was born in Kenya and therefore isn't allowed to run for President.

That claim has been spreading online but Hawaii officials say it's not true.

Obama was born in Honolulu and the proof is at the state Health Department.

To end the controversy, director Dr. Chiyome Fukino says she's seen the birth certificate herself. She just can't release it publicly.

After getting numerous requests for it, she explained again Friday, "state law prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record."

No state official, including Gov. Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the state.

If the only source for this on-air report is the statement I've seen from Dr. Fukino, it's yet another example of misleading reporting. The report says Dr. Fukino personally saw the birth certificate, but that's not what the statement says.

I would like to see a videotape of Dr. Fukino making that exact statement. I would like her to hold a press conference answering ALL the questions that her carefully parsed October 31 statement raises.

5. I cannot determine if the statement released was approved by the Governor of Hawaii and the Attorney General of Hawaii, or if it was released independently by Dr. Fukino.

6. Dr. Fukino does not state in her October 31, 2008 statement that she personally viewed an actual physical copy of the long form original birth certificate from 1961 signed by the attending physician at a Honolulu hospital.

7. In the AP report of her statement, Dr. Fukino says the State of Hawaii has the original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures. Since she raised the issue of state policies and procedures, I would like her to release the document describing the state's policies and procedures regarding maintaining "original birth certificates on record".

8. Did Senator Obama personally authorize Dr. Fukino and Dr. Onaka to personally view his "original birth certificate on record." ? If so, when and how ?

9. Did Senator Obama personally authorize Dr. Fukino and Dr. Onaka to issue the statement of October 31, 2008 ? If so, when and how ?

10. Have Dr. Fukino and Dr. Onaka had any communication with Senator Obama or did they meet with him in person on any occasion in the last 30 days or in the last year ? If so, were those communications or meetings negotiations related to statements to be made about his birth certificate ?

I will grant the Obama apologists this however.

While the statement released by Dr. Fukino does not prove with absolute certainty that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, and therefore is natural born and eligible for the Presidency (which is the standard that must be met), it does increase the likelihood that he was born in Hawaii.

Or, as those of us who have been skeptical of this entire stonewalling process from the beginning will argue, it increases our suspicion that there is something about this purported original birth certificate that Barack Obama does not want to see the light of day . . . before the election, after the election, or ever.

Now that the officials of the State of Hawaii Department of Health have partially opened the door, I think it's only right and proper that they disclose everything, including the actual original birth certificate.

Most importantly, Senator Barack Obama should finally do the right thing and authorize the State of Hawaii Department of Health, the Kapioloini Medical Center in Honolulu, and Queens Medical Center in Honolulu to release ALL DOCUMENTS related to his birth.

It's time for a change all right.

It's time for Senator Obama to change his stonewalling and obstructionism on this very important issue and disclose everything necessary to prove with absolute certainty that he is, in fact, natural born, and therefore eligible to serve as President.

Show Us The Birth Certificate Hawaii !

Chiyome Fukino
Brandeis BS 1972
MD University of Hawaii 1976

State of Hawaii Director Department of Health


Dr. Alvin Onaka
State of Hawaii
Chief of Vital Records Office

Hot off the presses !

This story broke in Hawaii about 3 hours ago:

START STORY

Hawaii DOH Talks About Sen. Obama's Birth Certificate
Written by KGMB9 News - news@kgmb9.com
October 31, 2008 11:43 AM
The Department of Health has released a statement about Senator Barack Obama's official birth certificate.

There have been talk among some chat rooms that Senator Obama was not born in Hawaii, or even America for that matter, and therefore is ineligible to run for the office of President.
There have been various requests for copies of his Hawaii birth certificate to the Department of Health, all which have to be turned down.

"State law (Hawai'i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record," said DOH Director Chiyome Fukino.

"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai'i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

Fukino adds that no state leaders, including Governor Lingle, has asked the certificate be handled in any way different from any one else's vital records in state possession.

END STORY

Does this confirm that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen ?
Is the question of his eligibility for the office of the Presidency finally settled ?

Not at all...

Note the careful language from the State Department of Health officials in this press release:

"[we] have personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

They did not say we have the long form copy of his birth certificate signed by his attending physician at Kapiolani Hospital on August 4, 1961.

It's an original birth certificate "in accordance with state policies and procedures."

One of those state policies and procedures was the acceptance of "after the fact" birth certificates under the 1911 Hawaii Birth Certificate program. This program was for residents of Hawaii over the age of one who did not register their birth with the state originally. The state accepted some "alternate form of documentation." This "alternate form of documentation", once accepted under this program that was in existence until 1972, becomes "an original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

How convenient that this press conference is held on the eve of the Presidential election just a couple weeks after Barack Obama went to visit his sick grandmother.

Here's the way Barack Obama can be straight forward and honest with the American people:

Authorize the release of this document that Dr. Chiyome and Dr. Onaka both say they've seen and verified.

If it's an August 4, 1961 long form birth certificate signed by an attending physician at a Honolulu hospital, then it's case closed. You've met the burden of proof.

But if it's some alternate document introduced later...depending on the contents of that document, we may still conclude you've not met the burden of proof.

But show us the document State of Hawaii and Barack Obama ! Let it see the light of day.

And by the way, while we're at it, here's a question for Dr. Chiyome and Dr. Onaka:
Can you please explain to me why you are violating state law by showing us the document, but not violating state law by telling us you've seen the document ? Did you receive authorization from Barack Obama to (1) look at the document and (2) tell us you've looked at the document ?

Another question on the original birth certificate Dr. Chiyome and Dr. Onaka verified:

Is it:

(1) A Certificate of Hawaiian Birth created under the 1911 "after the fact program ?

or

( 2) or is it a standard birth certificate created from the original document provided contemporaneously by the birth hospital ?

And yet another question on this carefully parsed statement:

"[we] have personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

What exactly does "original birth certificate on record" mean ?

Does it mean they physically viewed the hard copy of the original birth certificate ? Or does it mean they've reviewed the information technology procedures by which the abstracted data was placed into the State of Hawaii birth certificate data base?

And... why a released statement and not a press conference ?


Rush Limbaugh predicted this would happen.

Once more, El Rushbo is on target.

Definitions from Dictionary.com


On record

existing in a publication, document, file, etc.:


File

(1) a folder, cabinet, or other container in which papers, letters, etc., are arranged in convenient order for storage or reference.

(2) a collection of papers, records, etc., arranged in convenient order: to make a file for a new account.

(3) a collection of related data or program records stored on some input/output or auxiliary storage medium.

Obama Ineligible for the Presidency

Speaking tonight before a meeting of the Tipton County Tennessee Republicans at Gateway Baptist Church, conservative author Michael Patrick Leahy will outline his argument that Barack Obama has not proven he is a natural born citizen, and therefore is Constitutionally ineligible to serve as President of the United States.

“The Constitution is quite clear on this matter,” according to Leahy. “Article II, Section I of the Constitution states unequivocally that only a natural born citizen, older than thirty-five, who has resided in the United States for at least fourteen years is eligible for the Office of the Presidency. The courts have decided in the past that to be considered natural born, a candidate must have been born either in the United States or on an American military base outside the United States to parents who are American citizens. Any candidate born outside the United States, not on an American military base to American citizen parents is not natural born. For the first time in American political history, serious questions have been raised about the birth location of the nominee from a major party. In such instances, the burden of proof lies with the candidate. And clearly, Senator Obama has not met that burden of proof. Therefore, he is not eligible for the Office of the Presidency.”

The three types of proof offered by Obama to date are insufficient to establish that he is a natural born citizen. The proof offered includes:

(1) A digital image of the front of a State of Hawaii certified copy of Certificate of Live Birth posted on the “Fight the Smears” website in June, 2008.
(2) A physical inspection of the purported State of Hawaii certified copy of Certificate of Live Birth made in August, 2008 at Obama offices in Chicago by researchers from the Annenberg Political Fact Check organization, a unit of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
(3) A digital image of an August 13, 1961 “notice of birth” in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper.

None of the three pieces of evidence identified above have been verified by Dr. Alvin Onaka, the Registrar and Chief of the Vital Records Office for the State of Hawaii, as authentic. Even if the certified copy of the Certificate of Live Birth is determined to be an authentic document, it does not mean it verifies Obama was born in Hawaii. “That purported certified copy does not have the signature of Dr. Alvin Onaka on the back. It merely has the stamp of his signature. If it was generated by the State of Hawaii, it was generated by a clerk, who simply typed a certificate number into a computer data base, which contains abstract information supposedly generated at some time by viewing the long form vault copy Certificate of Live Birth submitted to the Department of Health by either the hospital of his birth, or at some time subsequent to his birth by his parents or grandparents. And Dr. Onaka himself has acknowledged in a 2005 speech that the integrity of birth certificate databases needs to be improved. It is within the range of the possible that the Hawaii birth certificate data base has been hacked into and compromised.”

“You can look at this evidence offered to date and a reasonable person might conclude it is more likely than not that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961 as he claims. Such a conclusion, however, does not meet the Constitutional requirement of absolute certainty. The Constitution does not say a person who more likely than not is a natural born citizen is eligible for the Office of the President. The Constitution says a person must be a natural born citizen to be eligible for the Office of the President.”

Leahy went on to echo the request of the non-partisan Annenberg Political Fact Check organization that conducted the physical inspection of the purported certified copy of the Certificate of Live Birth in the possession of the Obama campaign. “I agree with Brooks Jackson, Director of the Annenberg Political Fact Check organization, who I interviewed both yesterday and today,” Leahy said. “Here is a direct quote from Mr. Jackson, which he gave me this morning:”

"We asked the Obama campaign to consider asking Hawaii officials to release copies of his birth certificate to reporters, or at least to confirm publicly that the birth certificate he has produced is an official document. That way there could be absolutely no question of its authenticity. But they didn't think that was necessary."

“I am simply asking the Obama campaign to do as Mr. Jackson asks them. In my opinion, only the production of the long form vault copy of Barack Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth by the State of Hawaii and the verification of the authenticity of this document as it relates to Obama’s birth in Hawaii will establish that he is a natural born citizen and therefore eligible for the Office of the Presidency,” Leahy said. “I have already demonstrated in my book, What Does Barack Obama Believe?, that Senator Obama has the facts of his early life wrong. For over fifteen years he has been incorrectly claiming that his father left his mother when he was two years old. The facts are clear that his mother left his father, moving to Seattle from Honolulu, when he was seven months old. It’s possible that Senator Obama is as inaccurate in his statements about where he was born as he has been about when his parents separated, and the circumstances under which they separated.”

Click here for rest of press release.

The Lazy Writer's Guide to Sarah Palin: A Review of Joe Hilley's New Book

Having written What Does Sarah Palin Believe? I have a certain sympathy for Joe Hilley's efforts with his new book, Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader. It's a challenge to create a good book on an important political figure in a short period of time.

Mr. Hilley's book is a disappointing read, however, filled with factual errors and broad generalizations about Sarah Palin, all of which leads me to the conclusion that Mr. Hilley knows very little about Sarah Palin.

The slim volume of only 129 pages of actual text draws almost exclusively on secondary sources found through Google searches. Mr. Hilley conducted only four primary source interviews, and those interviews were with people only tangentially connected to Governor Palin (The Lt. Governor candidate who beat her in 2002, the wife of the man she filed an ethics complaint against, the pastor at the Wasilla, Alaska church she has attended a few times, the mayor who succeeded her).

Mr. Hilley's account of Sarah Palin's career is filled with factual errors, which is not surprising, given that one of his most significant and often cited sources was a September 4, 2008 broadcast of the Inside Edition television program.

Had Mr. Hilley taken the time to speak with her basketball coaches, her teammates, her pastors, and her mother, father, sister, and other family members, as I did, he would have discovered and corrected the long series of errors he made in his book.

I won't detail all the factual errors in his book, but as an example offer five specific inaccuracies related to his description of her basketball career:

1. He states incorrectly that the 1982 Alaska Girls High School Championship Game was held in Wasilla, Alaska. It was not. It was held in Anchorage, Alaska, about an hour's drive away.

2. He states incorrectly that Sarah Palin came into the 1982 State Championship game between Wasilla and Service High School in the second half when the score was tied. This is not factually true. Sarah's Wasilla team always had the lead in the second half.

3. He implies that the score was tied when Sarah stepped to the line with a few seconds remaining in the game. This is not true. The score was Wasilla 57, Service 53. The final score of the game was Wasilla 58, Service 53.

4. He describes Sarah's first foul shot as a swish. It was not. The ball hit the rim and bounced around the edge, then dropped through.

5. He inaccurately states that Sarah made the second foul shot. She did not. She missed it.

Like many of Governor Palin's critics on the left wing, Mr. Hilley attributes thoughts and feelings to Governor Palin without even the slightest clue as to whether or not they really are her thoughts or feelings.

Specifically, Mr. Hilley concludes that based on her worldview, Governor Palin believes in his trite "leadership principles" such as ... defeat means victory and less is more.

Based on my extensive research, which included over fifty interviews of people who actually know Sarah Palin well, this is not Sarah Palin's point of view.

Sarah Palin is a competitor, who always competes, and always tries to win, but accepts defeat graciously when it comes.

Finally, Mr. Hilley pontificates incorrectly that Governor Palin represents a new kind of leader, one who lacks experience but "connects with voters".

This is a back-handed compliment, at best, and quite frankly ignores her very strong record for six years as Mayor of Wasilla, her one year as a whistle blower as a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and her year and a half as Governor of Alaska.

Mr. Hilley is a good writer, with a record of success writing novels. My suggestion is that he stick to fiction, at which he excels, and leave the arena of non-fiction to people who actually check the facts.

My Most Current Sarah Palin Booksigning Schedule

Here is the most current schedule (as of Thursday October 23) of my confirmed book signings for "What Does Sarah Palin Believe?":


Evansville, Indiana Borders Bookstore, Sunday October 26, 2 pm to 4 pm

Germantown, Tennessee Borders Bookstore, Tuesday October 28, 4 pm to 6 pm


Atoka, Tennessee Tipton County Republican Party Meeting, Gateway Baptist Church, Tuesday October 28, 7 pm to 9 pm

Louisville, Kentucky Borders Bookstore (Hurstbourne), Thursday October 30, 2008 7 pm to 9 pm

Indianapolis, Indiana Borders Bookstore (downtown store) , Friday October 31, noon to 2 pm

Carmel, Indiana (suburb of Indianapolis) Borders Bookstore , Friday October 31, 7 pm to 9 pm

Franklin, Tennessee Borders Bookstore, Saturday November 1, 2 pm to 4 pm

Knoxville, Tennessee Borders Bookstore at Turkey Creek, Sunday November 2, 2 pm to 5 pm


Knoxville, Tennessee Borders Bookstore at Dean Hill, Sunday November 2, 6 pm to 8 pm

Cincinatti, Ohio Borders Bookstore (Northgate), Monday, November 3, 6 pm to 8 pm

Joe the Plumber--The Turning Point for the 2008 Election

Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio plumber who wants to buy a plumbing business with over $250,000 in annual revenues, will pay more taxes under Barack Obama's tax plan.

Here's the issue John McCain can use to turn the 2008 Election around.

It Ain't Over Till It's Over

That great political philosopher and New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra once said “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

His words are as relevant to the 2008 Presidential Election as they were to the 1960 World Series. The Yankees lost that series to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the last of the ninth innning of game seven when improbable hero, light hitting Pirate second baseman Bill Mazeroski, hit the only series ending walk off home run in history to seal a 10-9 Pirates victory. The Yankees had dominated the series, outscoring their rivals 55-27, but all their runs came in their three victories, not in their four losses.


Forty-eight years later, we’ve barely started the eighth inning of the 2008 Presidential Campaign, with twenty-two full days left before voters cast their ballots on November 4. Despite the eagerness of the mainstream media to start fitting Barack Obama for his coronation robes, a clear eyed analysis of the facts suggest that such displays of celebratory hubris are premature.

On September 17, the Zogby Poll gave Obama a two point lead (47 to 45) over John McCain. Today’s Zogby Poll gives Obama only a four point lead (48 to 44). Despite the great liquidity crisis of 2008, the off again on again $700 billion bailout of financial institutions finally passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, the unprecedented 22% decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average over this twenty-six day period (declining from 10,886 on September 17th to 8,451 on October 10th , a historical decline matched only by the stock market crash of October 1929, and the Black Monday crash in October 1987), and the virtually universal mainstream media bias in favor of Obama, Obama has only gained two points over McCain during this tumultuous period.

A look at the electoral college shows that the game is still in doubt. We can all remember that in the 2000 Presidential Election George W. Bush lost the popular vote 47.9% to 48.4%, but won the election with an electoral college victory of 271 votes to 266 votes. Senator McCain could easily win the same electoral college victory, losing the popular vote by even more than the 0.5% Bush lost it by in 2000. Today, Zogby puts 234 electoral college votes in Obama’s camp, 179 in McCain’s with 125 undecided. If nothing changes in the states currently projected for either candidate, that means Obama needs to pick up just 36 electoral college votes to secure victory.

Of the nine states that comprise the 125 Zogby undecided, Florida, Ohio, and Indiana, all are likely to fall Republican. Of the six remaining states—Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina—any combination totalling 36 would give the election to Obama. Only Pennsylvania, however, seems to be leaning to Obama. That scenario still leaves Obama 15 electoral college votes short of victory.

The real question is this—why with all these advantages has Barack Obama been unable to close the deal with the American people ?

The answer is simple – the American people don’t trust Obama. This election has always been a referendum on Barack Obama—who is he and what is his vision for America ? The majority of Americans simply don’t support his radically left wing European socialist domestic agenda, and most importantly don’t support his defeatist, un-American foreign policy. Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has it right when she describes his Iraq policy as one in which he “wants to show the white flag of surrender” just as we are on the verge of securing a hard earned victory there. Senator McCain is also right in characterizing Senator Obama’s recent boasts that he would invade Pakistan in order to kill Osama Bin Laden as an amateurish insult to a valued ally.

The recent anger over the vaunted $700 billion financial bailout deal (the one that preceded the recent one week 16% drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average) shows that Main Street is fed up with both Wall Street and K Street.

This is the argument John McCain and Sarah Palin need to make over the next twenty-two days. If they make it effectively enough, if the Republican rank and file don’t throw in the towel, intimidated by the main stream media prognostications, and if the international credit and financial markets stabilize, the McCain-Palin ticket will win.

Senator Obama is extraordinarily vulnerable to charges that his policies and his friends were the primary causes of the Home mortgage meltdown of 2008, and the resultant financial liquidity crisis. He himself took more money from the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac PACs in three years than any politician other than Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Committee that regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Dodd himself accepted a below market rate loan from Countrywide Financial, the failed mortgage company.

Former Obama adviser and current supporter Franklin Raines, who ran Fannie Mae into the ground over the four years he was in charge from 2000 to 2004, walked away with a cool $90 million. Democrat Barney Frank, a Barack Obama supporter and Chairman of the House Committee that oversaw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, declared in 2004 that Fannie Mae was completely sound and solvent.. And of course, there are the strong ties between the corrupt politically active organization ACORN, which hired Barack Obama back in 1995, and was a significant player in forcing political pressure on banks to make bad loans. Obama’s Presidential campaign has also recently hired ACORN to conduct voter registration for his campaign.

Look for Senator McCain to launch the first salvos in this attack during the debate this Wednesday, but look for his running mate, Sarah Palin, to take the argument most forcefully to the electorate. Palin, even more than McCain can make this argument. Though McCain has been the “maverick” in the Senate, Palin is the only one of the four candidates on the two national tickets who really is Main Street, working as a city councilor, then for six years as mayor of the small city of Wasilla, Alaska, where she reduced business taxes and literally brought more jobs and businesses to Main Street.

Perhaps nothing describes the different visions of America offered by McCain-Palin campaigns and the Obama-Biden Campaign than the way Sarah Palin and Barack Obama played basketball in high school. Both played on state championship basketball teams, but there the similarities ended.

“Sarah Barracuda” was the captain and defensive specialist whose job on the 1982 Alaska State Championship Wasilla Warriors was to get the ball to the two high scorers on the team. She was an important part of a highly cohesive team, every member of which knew her role. “Barry O’Bomber” was a disgruntled second stringer who saw little action on the 1979 Hawaii State Champion Punahou High School team. His individualistic style didn’t fit well into his coach’s disciplined, team oriented, style of play.

Sarah Palin is the best of Main Street America, Ronald Reagan returned in a dress with five children. Barack Obama is an exotic, self absorbed unknown, who has a history of friendships with people who don’t think much of American traditions.

The Obama campaign and his many apologists in the mainstream media can whine all they want that these charges are merely “personal attacks,” but in fact, they are the core reason why he shouldn’t be President. I’m guessing on November 4 a lot of Bill Mazeroskis will be voting for John McCain. When the results start coming in that night, Barack Obama and the mainstream media pundits may be wishing they had paid more attention to the political wisdom of Yogi Berra.

It Ain't Over

Today, October 10, 2008, the Zogby Poll has Obama over McCain by four points, 47 to 43

Obama is up in the current electoral college count, 234 to 179, but there are still 125 electoral college votes in doubt.

Stay tuned for my op-ed piece on this topic, coming out on Monday.

The pure joy of sport in Alaska helped form Sarah Palin's character

Playing high school sports in Alaska in 1982 required a high level of commitment from families, schools, and coaches. Whereas in the lower 48, the distance between two competing schools can be covered in a half hour car or bus ride, the adventure of getting there becomes a far more significant part of the experience than the actual athletic event itself at times.

The pure joy of sport, the degree of commitment, harkened back to an earlier era of American youth sports where everyone played. The scale of sport there was different. In a state with a population barely greater than 500,000, there were about 20,000 kids in high school, spread across a little over fifty high schools. With the exception of a handful of “mega-schools” in the Anchorage area, most high schools were small, with anywhere from thirty to one hundred kids.

With so few kids to choose from, anyone who showed up for practice and said they wanted to play, could play. It was a stark contrast with the modern elitist type of youth sports, where most kids are winnowed out early. In Alaska, as in the America of several decades earlier, most kids played sports year round. They just changed uniforms, equipment, and coaches, depending on the season.

Excerpted from Chapter Four of What Does Sarah Palin Believe? published by Harpeth River Press, written by Michael Patrick Leahy, Copyright 2008

To read more from What Does Sarah Palin Believe? Click here

Sarah Palin's Irish Catholic Roots Parallel those of Ronald Reagan

It’s no accident Sarah Palin’s speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention drew comparison to the first Republican politician from central casting, Ronald Reagan. Indeed, Reagan’s own story parallels that of her own Irish Catholic grandfather, Clement James Sheeran, the man whose devout faith guided her mother’s faith journey, who in turn, guided hers.

The two men were born four years apart, Clement James Sheeran in 1907 in Douglas, Washington, Ronald Wilson Reagan in 1911 in Tampico, Illinois. They could easily have been cousins, would likely have been friends had they grown up in the same town.
Both were affable, athletic, and ambitious with Irish Catholic fathers. Both were third generation Irish Catholics who grew up in the small towns of the American Midwest and West.


Click here to read more from Chapter One of my new book What Does Sarah Palin Believe?

Click here to purchase What Does Sarah Palin Believe? I will autograph every book purchased directly from this site.

"Red Market" and "Blue Market" book stores and the power of book signing electoral predictions

Jarret, the fantastic store manager at the Borders bookstore in Franklin, Tennessee, invited me to come by this Saturday to do a book signing for What Does Sarah Palin Believe?
It's what I am calling a "soft" book signing--there was no advance publicity, just put a table near the front entrance, show a dozen books, and see what happens.

In 2 hours this afternoon, I sold nine What Does Sarah Palin Believe? books and four What Does Barack Obama Believe? books.

An incredible showing for a book signing event with no advance publicity.

I have a theory about bookstores and book signings that I am going to test soon.

Book stores, like states are either red or blue. Swing book stores are purple. Perhaps more accurately, all book stores are either "red markets,", "blue markets", or "purple markets".

Franklin is a "red market" book store. That means most of the people who live within the book store's trade zone are Republicans. Roughly speaking, you could probably draw a circle with a 20 mile radius and call that the store's trade zone.

I believe I can walk into any "red market" book store in the country and hold a book signing where I sell 5 to 15 books within a 2 hour period.

Results would still be good, but less so in a "purple market" book store-- where the residents of the trade zone are roughly 50-50 Republicans and Democrats.

But a "blue market" book store -- where the trade zone is populated by Democrats-- will be a total waste of time. I doubt I would sell a single book in a "blue market" book store in an entire day.

This distinction has me thinking about trying a "swing state" book store book signing tour.... I believe I can probably predict how a swing state will vote by just showing up at all the major book stores in each swing state, sitting down for 2 hours, and seeing how many books I sell. If I average more than 5 books per store in a given state for each 2 hour book signing... the "swing state" will go for McCain-Palin. If I average less than 5 books per store, the "swing state" will go for Obama-Biden.

More later as I put the details of this tour together.

What Does Sarah Palin Believe? Book Launch Tomorrow at Barnes and Noble in St. Louis

My new book, What Does Sarah Palin Believe? will be launched tomorrow at a book signing at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Ladue, Missouri. That's 2 miles from the site of tomorrow night's Vice Presidential Debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden !

The signing will be from 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm. If you're in St. Louis, please stop by !

Sarah Palin Baptized as an Infant at Christ the King Roman Catholic Church in Richland, Washington

Sarah Heath Palin was baptized as an infant on June 7, 1964 at Christ the King Roman Catholic Church in Richland, Washington. Her uncle, Patrick Sheehan, and her aunt, Marjorie Sheeran were her godparents.

More details on Sarah Palin's Irish Catholic roots will be available in my new book What Does Sarah Palin Believe? We will be announcing the publisher and publication date next week.

Sarah Palin, Abraham Lincoln, and a Task from God

On the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks by Islamic terrorists on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, ABC’s Charlie Gibson sat down to interview Sarah Palin at her residence in Wasilla, Alaska.

While Gibson’s questions were tough and fair in general, they were far tougher than any questions previously posed to either Barack Obama or his running mate Joe Biden. Gibson’s demeanor, however, was a bit snarly and condescending, and he seemed to be focused on the “gotcha” style of journalism. Palin performed well, though her response to Gibson’s “gotcha” question on her view of the Bush Doctrine—that America had the right to pre-emptively strike terrorists who we reasonably expected were preparing to attack us—gave critics what they thought might be an opening.

But these critics missed the main point of the interview, the brilliant coup-de-grace delivered by Palin, in which she clearly laid out the moral basis for America’s War on Terror. Citing Abraham Lincoln’s words, continuing a line of reasoning first set forward publicly by emergent liberal Christian leader Jim Wallis in his book God’s Politics, Palin made a compelling case for the rectitude of America’s cause.

GIBSON: You said recently in your old church, “Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALIN: Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right, also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIBSON: Are we fighting a Holy War?
PALIN: That’s a repeat of Abraham Lincoln’s words, when he said, first he suggested, never presume to know what God’s will is, and I would never presume to know God’s will or to speak god’s words, but what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that’s a repeat in my comments, was, let us not pray that God is on our side, in a war, or any other time. But let us pray that we are on God’s side. That’s what that comment was all about, Charlie.
Today is the day that I send my first born, my son, my teenage son, oversees with his Stryker brigade. Four thousand other wonderful American men and women to fight for our country, to fight for our freedoms.
GIBSON: But you went on and said, “There is a plan, and it is God’s plan.”

PALIN: I believe that there is a plan for this world, and that plan, for this world, is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country, to be able to live and be protected within inalienable rights, that I believe are God-given, Charlie. And I believe those are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That in my worldview is the grand plan.
GIBSON: Then, are you sending your son on a task from God?
PALIN: I don’t know if the task is from God, Charlie. What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision. What he decided to do, in serving for the right reasons in serving something greater than self, and not choosing a real easy path, where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer.

As Beliefnet’s Steven Waterman points out, Gibson did not have the exact quote, nor did he have it in the proper context.

In his quesitons about God and war, ABC News's Charles Gibson took Sarah Palin's quote out of context and then claimed it was an exact quote.
Here's how he phrased it:

GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?
PALIN: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.
GIBSON: Exact words.
Well, no. Palin asked members of the church to pray "that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." That's very different. She's asking them to help insure that the war is part of God's plan, not declaring that it was.

Palin, in her response, powerfully articulated the moral basis for the War on Terror, and she did so using a reference to Abraham Lincoln. She cited a quote that liberal Christians such as Jim Wallis of Sojourner Magazine, and secular atheists, such as Susan Jacoby have often cited. (Though I pause to note that it appears that both Wallis and Jacoby cited earlier biographies which did not appear to cite the original source, which I describe below.)

The relevant Lincoln quote comes from F.B. Carpenter, the artist who painted Lincoln’s portrait in the White House over a six month period in 1864. Carpenter’s 1867 book, Six Months in the White House, contains his recollections of events he saw and heard at the White House during that time.

Here’s what Carpenter recalled Lincoln as saying in 1864:

No nobler reply ever fell from the lips of ruler, than that uttered by President Lincoln in response to the clergyman who ventured to say, in his presence, that he hoped " the LORD was on our side.". "I am not at all concerned about that," replied Mr. Lincoln, " for I know that the LORD is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the LORD'S side."

Though Gibson’s intent may have been to make Palin appear as an out of control right wing Christian zealot waging an irrational holy war, her measured response demonstrated not only a personal humility in discerning God’s will, it also showed a keen appreciation for American history and the Constitutional context in which the current War on Terror is being waged. That she did so using a Lincoln quote that prominent scholars of the left admire shows she is more than ready for the challenge of the Vice-Presidency.

Between the three of us, we're worth $1.7 billion !

Brant Bell, Former E-Bay CEO Meg Whitman, and Michael Patrick Leahy

Congressman Steve Cohen compares Obama to Jesus Christ

Congressman Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, today compared Barack Obama to Jesus Christ and Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate in a speech on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

“If you want change, you want the Democratic Party,” Cohen said. “Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus, who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor.”

You can see the full story here.

I'm wondering if Cohen and the rest of the Obama campaign realize just how low and petty they appear when they attack Palin like this.

Michael Patrick Leahy on the Roger Hedgecock Show

I have to thank Paul Shanklin, a fellow Tennessee delegate and the musical parody creator for the Rush Limbaugh Show, for helping me land this appearance on the Roger Hedgecock Show.

Paul stopped by the booth as I was pitching Roger for an appearance, and he have Roger the "thumbs up!" on me.

The interview with Roger was great !

Tennessee for McCain at the Republican National Convention

Newt Gingrich and Michael Patrick Leahy -- Between the two of us, we've sold over 1 million books

What Does Barack Obama Believe?

What Does Sarah Palin Believe?

Newt Gingrich Looks at What Does Barack Obama Believe? and What Does Sara Palin Believe?

Day 4 of the Republican National Convention....