RUMORS, RUMORS AND SNOPES

I recently received an email “revealing” the “truth” about Barack Obama’s Social Security number.

According to this account, Obama has a Social Security number which starts with 04, and that would mean that it was issued to somebody in Connecticut.

Since Obama never lived in Connecticut, the theory goes that his number was not duly issued in the regular course, but was in fact stolen somehow.

The email goes on to say that Obama’s grandmother worked in the Probate Court in Hawaii, where a man from Connecticut died without collecting Social Security benefits.

So the email claims that she stole the number and gave it to Obama.

Snopes debunks the whole tale, pointing out that the French born immigrant, whose number Obama supposedly stole, one Jean Paul Ludwig, died in 1981, long after Obama’s number was issued. And besides, he had a different number.

Wait a minute, says my old high school pal, do you really believe Snopes? They’re a bunch of liberals financed by George Soros.

Factcheck.org says otherwise. Snopes is owned and operated by David and Barbara Mikkleson. Barbara is a Canadian citizen, David a registered Independent who was a registered Republican in 2000. Their site is financed by advertising.

OK. So Snopes is legit.

Still, they don’t have all the answers, and not being an official government agency, they probably can’t see all the records.

Snopes says that Obama’s Social Security number is 042-68-4425. I don’t know how they found out his number. I certainly hope they can’t find mine.

Anyhow, Snopes says that the 042 means that when Obama applied for a Social Security number he asked that his card be sent to an address with the 06814 area code.

That’s in Dansbury, Connecticut.

Was Barack Obama then living in Dansbury Connecticut?

Snopes doesn’t think so.

In fact, Snopes says that the President’s Connecticut Social Security number is “something of a curiosity.” Then Snopes tells us that Obama lived at an address in Hawaii with the zip code 96814.

06814 versus 96814?

Well, the zero and the nine are right next to each other on the typewriter. Could be a typo.

Could be. Maybe it was. Probably was.

Still, the man is the President of the United States. Someplace in the bowels of the federal government’s archives, there has to be a record of the address to which Barack Obama’s first Social Security card was mailed.

Wouldn’t you think?

I have no doubt that if a Hawaiian branch office of the Social Security Administration mailed a letter with a Hawaiian street address and a Hawaiian city in a Hawaiian branch of the U.S. Post Office, that the Hawaiian postal clerk would assume that the 06814 zip code was a mistake and he would route the letter to the Hawaiian address.

Conjecture? Yes. Theory? Admittedly. But it shouldn’t be.

Frankly, I’m a little weary of the whole Barack Hussein Obama fairy tale. The President and his campaign managers seem to revel in the narrative of mystery that surrounds him.

Birth records, academic records, travel records, everything is secret. They love it. They love the speculation, the intrigue.

They love to keep the birthers digging. Maybe they hope the diggers will discover that there were angels singing, “Peace on Earth …”