Barack Obama, Selective Service Registration:
Questions, More Questions, Still More Questions
No Curiosity Excited in the Mainstream Media
About Obama's Selective Service Registration
Say what you will, Debbie Schlussel is interesting.
Last week, the motor behind debbieschlussel.com posted an interesting article about the Selective Service registration of Barack Obama. Multiple screenshots--complete with letters A-H highlighting areas that raised questions--make the provocative post must-reading for anyone who has wondered about the squeaky-clean, scrubbed Obama narrative.
In our opinion, Schlussel gets some things right, while other items are a bit less clear. One claim Schlussel makes that falls into the "dubious" category: Obama signed his name with a peace sign. Our view is that this is an overly-dramatic interpretation; interested readers can visit Schlussel's site, examine the BHO signature and make their own judgment.
DBKP attempted to contact Schlussel, but got no response.
From EXCLUSIVE: Did Next Commander-in-Chief Falsify Selective Service Registration? Never Actually Register? Obama's Draft Registration Raises Serious Questions:
Did President-elect Barack Hussein Obama commit a federal crime in September of this year? Or did he never actually register and, instead, did friends of his in the Chicago federal records center, which maintains the official copy of his alleged Selective Service registration commit the crime for him?
It's either one or the other, as indicated by the release of Barack Obama's official Selective Service registration for the draft. A friend of mine, who is a retired federal agent, spent almost a year trying to obtain this document through a Freedom of Information Act request, and, after much stonewalling, finally received it and released it to me.
Breitbart TV's B-Cast did an informative show on the subject, interviewing Schussel, who walked viewers through the document and the questions about its authenticity.
Though the video is 30 minutes, it's well worth watching for those who are interested in our next Commander-in-Chief's past. Many pieces of the Obama puzzle are, and have been, hidden from public view--including birth, medical, college and university records.
During the campaign, the Mainstream Media exhibited a singular lack of curiosity about their Fab Fave candidate and his past, preferring instead to quote from Obama's two memoirs or the campaign's canned answers.
Inquires about actual records--which would've helped shed light on Obama's background--was a subject that, like the John Edwards' Scandal--remained off-limits in the polite MSM conversations that passed for election news.
ALSO at DBKP: The Missing Records of Barack Obama
* Unreleased Obama Records: Did Obama Attend Columbia?
* Obama Records: Obama Medical, College, University, Other Records Still Hidden
* Obama College, Medical, Birth Records: Who is Barack Obama?
* Obama Medical Records: MSM’s Don’t Ask, Obama’s Don’t Tell Policy
* Obama Records: Obama Campaign Still Refuses to Release Medical, Other Records
Occidental College Records
Columbia University Records
Harvard University Records
Birth Records
University of Chicago Records
Khalidi Video
QUESTIONS:
Barack Obama's Selective Service Registration
The Video
Schlussel's document source--a retired federal employee--does enough detective work to excite interest in normally-inquisitive reporters. Normally-inquisitive reporters are in short supply in the MSM, however, when the subject turns to favored presidential candidates.
In a later update to Schlussel's original post, she provides some information on her source. Schlussel's source is no pajamas-clad basement dweller:
The recently retired federal agent has requested that I disclose his identity so that there is no question as to the source of the information.
His name is Stephen Coffman. He retired last year from the position of the Resident Agent in Charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Galveston, Texas office. He has over 32 years of government service and has held a Secret or higher security clearance for the majority of those years.
He filed the FOIA with Selective Service and has the original letter and the attachments. He first notified the Selective Service of his findings and they ignored the questions.
About the image at Schlussel's site: it was noted that the date stamped on the form provided by Selective Service and the date on the signature line were different. The differing dates between when the SSR form was signed and the date stamped on the form?
It could be just an honest mistake.
Several other parts of the document are not so easily explained away, particularly the Document Location Number (DLN) on the form.
Obama supporters have claimed that the documents are fake--what else would they say?--but Schlussel has updated her post today with a copy of the letter that Coffman received from the Selective Service Administration, along with the document.
Another Honest Mistake?
Back in September 2007, Newsbusters' Tom Blumer made a quick fact check on another of Obama's Selective Service registration claims. From O-Busted: Selective Service Requirement Did Not Exist When Obama Says He Registered:
In his hilariously titled post ("Mighta Joined If He Coulda Capped Some Cong") on Barack Obama's interview in a barn this morning (not kidding) on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, fellow NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein reported on Obama's answer to a viewer's question about whether he ever considered military service. You can read Mark's post for his overall thoughts, but I want to focus on something the Illinois senator said that several commenters at the post took exception to:You know, I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school. .... But keep in mind: I graduated in 1979.
There are only two "little" problems:
- Selective Service Registration was not possible in 1979.
- Bob Owens at Pajamas Media noted that Obama registered with the Selective Service with an effective date of September 4, 1980.
Could be another example of another honest mistake.
At least Selective Service has provided some documentation. Previously--at least in February 2008--there was no Selective Service number for Barack Obama at the Selective Service website.
President Bush released his Selective Service Registration Number, why won't Senator Obama?
His campaign just sidesteps the issues as to whether he did register.
The Selective Service, while not releasing his number, claim that the reason you get "No Record Found" when you check for his registation on their website (www.sss.gov ) is because of a dataprocessing error. It seems out of the millions and millions of records, Senator Obama's is the only one that does not show up!
Perhaps, it was just another honest mistake.
One More Honest Mistake?
Bob Owens at Pajamas Media addressed Internet chatter about the Obama Selective Service issue in August 2008, "Did Obama Actually Register for Selective Service?". It should be noted that Owens wrote his piece without benefit of the document provided by Schlussel's source.
It is a rumor that the Obama campaign has chosen to ignore despite numerous requests, and it is a rumor that even Snopes couldn’t seem to confirm or deny definitively.After contacting the Selective Service System for an answer several times since late June, Pajamas Media obtained official confirmation from the Selective Service System via email that Barack Obama did indeed register for the Selective Service as required by law, and is eligible to run for the presidency.
Mr. Owens,
Barack Hussein Obama registered at a post office in Hawaii. The effective registration date was September 4, 1980.
His registration number is 61-1125539-1.
Daniel Amon
Public Affairs Specialist
While we agree with most of what Owens usually writes, he seems to belong to a subset of bloggers who ascribe all questions concerning the murkiness surrounding Obama's documentation as "rumor-mongers" or "conspiracy theorists".
Prior to September 2008, we included ourselves in this subset. However, the increasing questions about most things in the past of Barack Obama have moved us into another group: the "Missouri-minded".
As in, "Show me".
It seems to us that one, two, possibly three questions concerning Obama records and documents might be given a pass.
But, everything?
When dealing with Obama's background, an incredible pattern of coincidences--which we don't believe--occurs. Whatever the document, whatever the question: the Obama campaign ignored it--until the issue became troublesome.
Then, they would release only enough of an answer to satisfy the very few in the MSM who'd had the brass to ask. Supporters and apologists would then rush in to condemn anyone who wanted a follow-up answer.
Obama's campaign started a website to combat rumors: fightthesmears.com. The only problem, it didn't. Picking and choosing mostly straw-men, the website was a brilliant concept: label inconvenient information that didn't fit the campaign/media narrative about the candidate as "smears".
The Obama campaign used its Internet site to discredit other Internet sites with which it disagreed. Any story that threatened to gain traction was branded a "smear" and relegated to fightthesmears.com, where Obama's thin resume/record was repackaged as Internet fact, wrapped with a bow of indignation.
Harkening back to the 1990s, it's remembered that "conspiracy theorist" was applied to those publications (notably American Spectator) which uncovered uncomfortable questions concerning Bill and Hillary Clinton's past.
When Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic nomination for presidency, a now pro-Obama MSM--which derided those with questions over Hillary's cattle futures and other bits and pieces from Arkansas when they mattered--suddenly ran many of those stories 10-15 years after the fact.
Barack Obama and his apologists apparently remember that particular lesson very well: like the 1990s Clintons, persistent questions about the sanitized version of Obama only come from "conspiracy theorists".
by Mondo Frazier
images: dbkp file; wikimedia
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