Thread: Anonymous web site offers $10,000 for Obama transcripts

Anonymous web site offers $10,000 for Obama transcripts

According to the Daily Caller web site, blogger Brooks Bayne is behind an anonymous web site offering $10,000 for an authentic copy of Barack Obama’s course transcripts from Occidental College.

The offer is problematic for two reasons. First, if such a document were produced showing normal academic activity for a student named Barack Obama, birthers would never accept it as authentic. The other problem is that they don’t actually have the $10,000. Bayne declined to reveal the “recognizable” names of others behind the site.

Bayne said his organization’s members plan to pool their money to raise the cash prize, and added that the amount could grow if others step forward to contribute.

Anonymous web site offers $10,000 for Obama transcripts | Obama Conspiracy Theories

College transcripts replace birth certificate for Obama detractors

By Robin Abcarian May 28, 2012, 6:00 a.m.

Now that the issue of the president’s birth certificate has been laid to rest (mostly), some conservatives are turning their attention to a new obsession: Barack Obama's college transcripts.

Last week, a website that already had offered a $10,000 reward for Obama's transcripts from Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School, increased the bounty to $20,000.

About a year ago, Donald Trump, among the highest-profile "birthers," helped get the mini-movement started. After the president released his long-form birth certificate, Trump abruptly changed subjects:
"The word is, according to what I’ve read," said Trump, "that he was a terrible student when he went to Occidental. He then gets into Columbia; he then gets to Harvard. ... How do you get into Harvard if you’re not a good student? Now maybe that's right or maybe it’s wrong, but I don't know why he doesn’t release his records."

What do these "transcripters" (if we may coin a phrase) hope to prove?

"We’re not convinced that Barack is as smart as you media elitists keep insisting he is," says The Trenches, the website that posted the reward. (The Daily Caller outed the responsible party as Brooks Bayne, a conservative blogger who admitted he was behind the reward.)

That rationale may strike some as a little flimsy, given that Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review, taught constitutional law, has two bestselling books to his credit and is, at the moment, leader of the free world.

We do know a few things about the president's college career.
In his new book, "Barack Obama: The Story," David Maraniss quotes Obama as saying that his grade point average at Columbia was an impressive 3.7. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, which cannot happen with poor grades.

The president’s presumptive opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, was no academic slouch either. According to various news reports, Romney graduated from Brigham Young University with a 3.97 grade point average and was in the top 5% of his class at Harvard Business School, where he simultaneously earned a law degree.

Unfortunately for transcript transparency advocates, school transcripts, like tax returns, are private. They are protected by a 1974 law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA.

"There are all kinds of exceptions, but the rule is records may only be released with signed written consent of the individual,” said Barmak Nasserian, associate executive director of the American Assn. of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. The group counts more than 2,600 degree-granting institutions among its members. "Barack Obama, like every other American, is entitled to privacy rights under federal law."

In any case, said Nasserian, he doesn’t see much benefit in allowing voters to peruse candidates' college transcripts.

"I am not sure looking at 20-year-old Mitt Romney or Barack Obama at that granular level of detail would make a difference," he said. "It's kind of a stretch to say performance in a particular course, or that they took a course with a professed Marxist, or they studied Russian for heaven's sakes, is going to be relevant or helpful to someone making up their mind."

Though it may be true that college transcripts are not determinative, they can certainly be revealing.

In 1999, the New Yorker published an apparently purloined copy of George W. Bush's Yale transcript before he became the Republican nominee for president. Bush, it turned out, was basically a C student. Was this a scandal? Hardly. He never cast himself as an intellectual or brainiac, and, despite his Harvard MBA, often made fun of highly credentialed people.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was assumed by many to be Bush's intellectual superior. But months after he lost to Bush, his college transcripts were inadvertently sent to the Boston Globe and he was revealed to be a C student as well, earning four Ds his freshman year. (Stung by allegations that his Vietnam War service was not what he had claimed, Kerry had given permission for his Navy records to be turned over to the newspaper. The college records were part of those documents.)

Can a mediocre student hope to achieve the highest office?

The answer is self-evident.

"To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done," President Bush told Yale graduates in 2001. "And to the C students, I say you too can be president of the United States."

David Lauter contributed to this report.
robin.abcarian@latimes.com

May 29, 2012

Conservative offers $20K for Obama's college transcripts

By Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY Updated 4m ago

A conservative blogger is upping his bounty for Obama's college transcripts to $20,000.

"We're not convinced that Barack is as smart as you media elitists keep insisting he is," says The Trenches, the website that promises the cash to anyone who can provide authentic transcripts for Obama's coursework at Occidental College, Columbia University or Harvard University.

Brooks Bayne, a conservative blogger, told the conservative website The Daily Caller earlier this month that he was behind the bounty and initially set the reward at $10,000. The reward was doubled to $20,000 last week.

Obama attended Occidental before transferring to Columbia, where he earned a bachelor's degree. He earned a law degree from Harvard, where he was president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.

The Los Angeles Times notes today that Obama told writer David Maraniss that his grade point average was 3.7 at Columbia. The president graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.

Here's the announcement from The Trenches announcing the doubling of the reward:

Update: 5/21/ 2012 – Due to additional support from the community we're raising the bounty for Obama's transcripts to $20,000.

You've failed, media.

You've had over three years to vet President Barack Obama. Yet in three years in office and over a year of campaigning beforehand, you have either been oddly uninterested or purposefully ignorant of Barack Obama's educational history. You were, however, quite interested in George Bush's transcripts.

This uncharacteristic absence of curiosity about an American president alarms us. At $15 trillion, our nation's debt is the highest it has ever been – and it keeps growing. We're not convinced that Barack is as smart as you media elitists keep insisting he is.

We therefore offer in reward $20,000 to anyone who provides the college transcripts of President Barack Obama. Occidental, Harvard, Columbia … any would represent more intellectual curiosity about the leader of the free world than the media has demonstrated since Obama won the Democrat primary.

Upon obtaining any of these transcripts, please contact war@thetrenches.us for verification and payment. This offer goes into effect immediately.

Media, your stranglehold on the truth ends NOW. Let the vetting begin.

Bellum Letale

Let's "spread the wealth around" to vet the prez. If you'd like to donate to this initiative (so we can increase the bounty) or our upcoming initiatives, click the donate button.

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