For several years, an Orwellian-type fear of being "marginalized" held reporters and pundits back from questioning Barack Obama's eligibility to hold the office of the presidency.  To raise an eyebrow at the bizarre secrecy of Obama was off-limits.  To question whether the historic definition of "natural born citizen" applied to Obama was taboo.

The era of fear, however, is happily winding down.  It will take some time for this realization to fully take hold.  But make no mistake: the tables have turned.

Like it or not, the ground has shifted, and it cannot shift back.  The evidence of Obama's forgeries is not going away.

Up until this point, Mr. Obama controlled everything, including the talking points and burden of proof.

Rather than simply produce certified paper copies for state election officials and make the original available for officials to inspect in Hawaii, Obama played games with his purported birth certificate.  We were told for three years that Obama's birth certificate had been posted online in 2008 -- though it turns out that it was a scant certification.  In 2010, when confronted with the alarming doubts of the American people, Mr. Obama lamented to a sympathetic Brian Williams of NBC: "I can't spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead."  The following year, out of left field, on April 27, 2011, Obama "released" the elusive birth certificate by posting a now-discredited file image online.

This time he wasn't teasing.  It was "proof positive."  Mr. Obama, in his robotic style, barked that it was time to stop the "silliness" and move on.

No one ever wanted Obama to get all crazy and walk around with his birth certificate plastered on his forehead.  But many took the reasonable position of wanting the mysterious birth certificate produced, not plastered or uploaded to a computer.  Many wanted Obama to produce certified copies for state officials and make the original available for inspection.

But because no authority forced him to comply with basic legal standards, Mr. Obama was able to create a sideshow atmosphere by selecting non-experts to verify his internet postings behind closed doors.  His media sycophants were able to make those who questioned Obama's staunch secrecy appear as the unreasonable ones.  Somehow the burden of proof was erroneously placed on the citizenry to prove that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii.

Well, the burden never actually rested with the people to prove anything.  That was all smoke and mirrors.  No conspiracy theories are needed to demand that Obama comply with basic legal standards -- especially in context of a state with a history of certifying foreign births as Hawaiian.

After Obama "released" the birth certificate in 2011, nonpartisan computer software experts immediately recognized that the embarrassing image had been computer-assembled.  Of course, few in the free press dared to report on the "silliness."  Fox News quickly summonsed Adobe-certified expert Jean-Claude Tremblayto to conclude, nothing fishy here (but his ORC explanation has been demonstrably debunked by the control-test findings of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's investigative team -- see below).

It's simply unfathomable to the consensus media that the One they worked so hard to elect could be a fraud -- or, at minimum, could have something to hide.

Unfortunately, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's team of law enforcement and investigative experts were able to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that forgeries have been committed.  It turns out that the sheriff simply confirmed the "open secret" shared by technical document experts across the country.  As with many crimes, if not for their abject carelessness, the forgers might have gotten away with it.  But the strength of the evidence is such that local law enforcement was able to conclude that "probable cause" exists to show that the White House uploaded a computer-generated forgery of a birth certificate.  Ditto with Obama's Selective Service registration form: it is also a crude forgery.

Who would have thought that Obama's illegal immigration nemesis, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, could turn the tables on Obama?

With the help of his friends in the consensus media, Mr. Obama had been afforded the luxury of effectively remaining silent for years.  Obama was able to sit back as a third-party onlooker as the media attacked, maligned, and ignored those who raised valid questions.

But the recent findings are similar to the events of a trial in which the burden of proof shifts from one party to the other.  In our context, the burden of proof was absurdly placed on the people, but finally it has shifted to Obama.  The six-month investigation by trained law enforcement and forensic experts has resulted in a compelling case-in-chief.

Anyone who views the video presentations of the law enforcement team can plainly observe the sea change which shifted the burden to rebut to Obama.

Even though crimes were allegedly committed, at this point, what is taking place is comparable to a civil trial.  As such, it is time for Mr. Obama to produce competent evidence.  If he has no evidence to produce, he's in public opinion trouble.  If a court or Congress forces the production of his original documents, it's over for Obama.

Simple little mistakes: hastily uploading an assembled image without first printing and scanning, and cutting a "2008" rubber stamp to create the appearance of "1980."  And the Selective Service forgery alone is enough to end Obama's presidency.

Sheriff Arpaio is under personal attack, but curiously, the control-test findings of his team are not being refuted.  Apparently oblivious of the fact that the White House tried to cover its tracks by quickly replacing its original file image, NPR naively reports: "For the record, we opened the file using Adobe Photoshop and found that [the birth certificate] contained only a single layer of information."  Fortunately, thousands have the original White House posting preserved for perpetuity.

The establishment media are trying every way they can think of to discredit Sheriff Joe.  As WND.com president Joseph Farah recently wrote, "[t]hey are no longer just protecting Obama. They are now protecting their own reputations."  The problem, of course, is that after all the attacks on Joe Arpaio are exhausted and after all the dust settles, the evidence of Obama's forgeries will remain.

The problem for Obama and his enablers is that the evidence is objective.  And it's there for everyone to see.  Generations from now, professors in Adobe Photoshop and journalism classes will be discussing and analyzing the evidence of Obama's forgeries.

The very result that timid conservatives and liberal reporters feared will eventually catch up with them: loss of credibility.

On the flipside, those who questioned Obama's bizarre secrecy eventually will be vindicated.