Obama Island Giveaway?

There's a meme running around the more rabid conservative blogs these days, claiming that Obama is giving away seven “resource-laden” islands to the Russians.  According to reports like this one, these islands are long accepted as part of the United States (specifically, Alaska) – and Obama is just giving them away for no good reason.

This smelled fishy to me.  First of all, I'd never heard of these islands before, and I'd think such treasure troves of resources would be something I'd run across.  Secondly, it's inconceivable that Obama could just “give away” land that was generally accepted as part of the U.S. without a hue and cry being raised – by the Alaskans, if not anyone else.

So I did some investigating.  Short answer: this meme is complete bullshit.

This kind of thing really ticks me off.  There are more than enough pieces of real evidence to condemn Obama with; a strong case can be made to boot him out of office without any resort to fabrications.  Further, these fabrications actually provide ammuntion to the liberals – they get to point at these and dismiss the other side as tin foil hat wearing lunatics.  And there's some justice in their observation.

Here's the reality, nicely laid out by FactCheck.org.  I spot-checked a few of their more interesting points myself.  First, the map at right (theirs) is not at all misleading.  I went to Google Earth (to eliminate map projection distortions) and looked up all eight of the islands in question.  There's no doubt about it: all eight of them are rather obviously much closer to Russia than they are to the U.S.  Second, I verified that the Alaskan Senators did support this treaty – and in the process, I discovered that Sarah Palin also supports it.  Finally, I verified that the treaty was actually negotiated in 1989 with the Soviet Union, who ratified it in 1990.  There is no more Soviet Union, and the Russians are not at all sure they want this treaty (as is also pointed out by FactCheck.org) – many politicians in Russia believe the treaty gives far too much to the U.S.!

Come on, folks.  Let's deal in facts, please ... at least when they're available!