In the 1960s and 1970s, a young man named Frank Abagnale embarked on a career as a master imposter.\u00a0 Abagnale began his storied career by opening checking accounts in numerous banks and writing checks on his overdrawn accounts.\u00a0 When that scam ran its course he learned how to print nearly perfect checks, deposit them, and draw money on the fraudulent deposits.\u00a0 He also learned how to print bogus bank deposit slips containing his own account number.\u00a0 After mixing his bogus deposit slips in with the bank\u2019s real deposit slips, the bank customers unlucky enough to use one of them found their deposits disappear mysteriously into Abagnale\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
At age 16, Abagnale forged a PanAm employee ID card.\u00a0\u00a0 Using the fake ID and telling the airline that he\u2019d lost his uniform, he was able to acquire a PanAm pilots uniform.\u00a0 Then, between the ages of 16 and 18, using his fake ID, a forged FAA pilot\u2019s license, and his purloined PanAm uniform, he \u201cdeadheaded\u201d on PanAm flights all over the world.\u00a0 According to PanAm\u2019s best estimates, Abagnale flew more than a million miles, on more than 250 flights, to 26 countries.\u00a0 While posing as a PanAm pilot, he stayed and ate at some of the world\u2019s finest hotels, all of which was charged directly to PanAm.<\/p>\n
Following his \u201ccareer\u201d as a PanAm pilot, Abagnale worked as chief resident pediatrician at a Georgia hospital.\u00a0 After forming a friendship with a real doctor who lived in Abagnale\u2019s apartment complex, he convinced his doctor friend that he was a pediatrician and agreed to fill in as supervisor of pediatric residents until the hospital could recruit a full time supervisor.<\/p>\n
During the years that Abagnale masqueraded as a PanAm pilot, he was able to forge a Harvard Law School transcript\u2026 joining Barack Obama in proving once again that a Harvard law degree is worth about as much as the paper it\u2019s printed on.\u00a0 He studied for the Louisiana bar exam, failed it twice, but passed it on his third attempt.\u00a0 Then, at the age of 19, he was hired as an attorney in the office of the Louisiana Attorney General.<\/p>\n
Abagnale\u2019s incredible story of personal deception was told in his autobiography, titled Catch Me if You Can<\/em>, later turned into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio.<\/p>\n In more recent times, American sports fans have been captivated by a major hoax involving Notre Dame University\u2019s famed linebacker, Heisman Trophy runner-up Manti Te\u2019o.<\/p>\n As the No. 1 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish fought their way toward the 2013 BCS championship game against the Alabama Crimson Tide, anticipating their first national championship since 1988, a major part of the hype and the drama was the tragedy surrounding linebacker Manti Te\u2019o and the untimely death of his beautiful young girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, and his beloved grandmother\u2026 both of whom reportedly died of cancer on the same day.\u00a0 It was a heart-wrenching tale of victory and tragedy intertwined.<\/p>\n According to the South Bend<\/em> (Indiana) Tribune<\/em>, Manti and Lennay met after a November 2009 football game between Stanford and Notre Dame in Palo Alto, California.\u00a0 The Tribune<\/em> reports that \u201cLennay Kekua was a Stanford student and Cardinal football fan when the two exchanged glances, handshakes, and phone numbers that fateful weekend three seasons ago.\u201d<\/p>\n However, all of the hype and spin\u2026 obviously designed to give Notre Dame a public relations edge and Te\u2019o, personally, a leg up on the Heisman Trophy and a boost in the upcoming NFL draft\u2026 came tumbling down on Wednesday, January 16.\u00a0 According to a CNN story, \u201cA sports website called Deadspin<\/em> published a piece<\/a> dismissing as a hoax the existence of (Manti) Te’o’s girlfriend \u2013 the one who he said died around the same time as his grandmother while his team marched toward the BCS National Championship Game.\u201d<\/p>\n The university held a news conference saying Te’o was the \u201cvictim of an \u2018elaborate hoax.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0 Te’o released a statement saying he was embarrassed and that he was the victim of a \u201csick joke.\u201d<\/p>\n Victim of a sick joke?\u00a0 Te’o’s father, Brian, was quoted in the Deadspin<\/em> article as saying: \u201cThey started out as just friends. \u00a0Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. \u00a0But within the last year, they became a couple.\u201d<\/p>\n Many skeptics are now openly doubting Te\u2019o\u2019s insistence that he is the innocent victim of a hoax.\u00a0 For example, why did he tell reporters in a pre-Heisman Trophy presentation interview on December 8 that he \u201clost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer,\u201d when just two days earlier the woman he thought was dead called him on his cellphone?<\/p>\n Why did he tell a Sports Illustrated reporter in October that Kekua came to one of his games, but later insist that he never met her?\u00a0 And if he knew that Lennay Kekua didn\u2019t exist\u2026 which he clearly had to\u2026 why did he continue to give numerous interviews in which he described in great detail the deep and abiding love they shared?<\/p>\n Officials of Notre Dame are quite anxious to absolve themselves of any blame in creating a hoax that could only have two beneficiaries: Notre Dame University and Manti Te\u2019o.\u00a0 Notre Dame benefitted from a sympathy factor just weeks before the biggest game in 25 years.\u00a0 While Te\u2019o benefitted by increasing his stock as a Heisman Trophy finalist and as a top prospect in the NFL draft.\u00a0 If Hollywood should ever decide to make a movie based on Manti Te\u2019o\u2019s imaginary love affair, they might title it, \u201cFigure Me Out, if You Can.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Then, of course, we have the greatest imposter of all time, Barack Hussein Obama, who has succeeded in hoaxing his way into two terms as president of the United States.<\/p>\n As Obama begins his second term in the White House he has apparently convinced almost every Democrat in the country that he is, in fact, eligible to serve as president, in spite of the fact that he was born with British citizenship and currently holds Kenyan citizenship.\u00a0 Democrats believe that these facts should not disqualify him, while frightened Republican leaders fail to act against him for fear that they be branded as something worse than a child molester\u2026 a \u201cbirther.\u201d<\/p>\n Within hours after being sworn in as president of the United States on January 20, 2009, Obama signed Executive Order 13489, sealing from public inspection the most critical evidence of who he actually is.\u00a0 The documents sealed from view by historians, the media, and the people, include, but are not limited to, the following:<\/p>\n His official long form birth certificate,<\/p>\n The birth certificate that Obama posted on the White House website on April 27, 2011 has been examined by some of the top forensic experts in the country and has been found to be a rather poor forgery.\u00a0 Lord Monckton, a recognized authority on probability theory, has found that the chances that Obama\u2019s birth certificate is authentic are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 75 quadrillion\u2026 roughly equal to the chances of winning the Powerball lottery, and being struck by lightning, on the very same day.<\/p>\n The Social Security number that Obama has used for many years produces a \u201cno match\u201d when submitted to the Social Security Administration\u2019s E-Verify test\u2026 the same test that prospective employers use to verify that prospective employees are legal residents of the U.S.\u00a0 The Social Security number that Obama uses was reserved for use by a resident of Connecticut\u2026 where Obama has never resided\u2026 and was first issued to a person unknown between 1977 and 1979.<\/p>\n Of the three greatest imposters\/hoaxsters of modern times, Barack Obama is by far the greatest of all.\u00a0 Abagnale, who began his career at age 16, was obviously a master of deceit.\u00a0 Te\u2019o, who appears to have been a willing participant in a massive hoax, is a young man who appears to have gotten himself in way over his head.\u00a0 But for a man to undertake to convince at least half the American people, supposedly the best-informed people on the face of the Earth, that he is eligible to serve as president of the United States is a feat of breathtaking chutzpa<\/em>.<\/p>\n I thought it would be most appropriate to publish this column on April 1st<\/sup>, April Fools Day, but then it occurred to me that, where Barack Obama is concerned, every day is April Fools Day.\u00a0 When it comes time to make a movie of Obama\u2019s life, they couldn\u2019t do better than to borrow the title of the 2005 reality TV show, Who\u2019s Your Daddy<\/em>?\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the 1960s and 1970s, a young man named Frank Abagnale embarked on a career as a master imposter.\u00a0 Abagnale began his storied career by opening checking accounts in numerous banks and writing checks on his overdrawn accounts.\u00a0 When that … Continue reading \n