It's Official Obama Born in the U.S.A


by Brooks Jackson

Barack Obama Presidential Candidate Democrat Nominee Arianna Huffington Political News and Social Commentary

Of all the nutty rumors, baseless conspiracy theories and sheer disinformation that we've dealt with at FactCheck.org during campaign 2008, perhaps the goofiest is the claim that Barack Obama is not a "natural-born citizen" and therefore not eligible to be president under the constitution.

This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party's nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain's partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.

There has never been anything but rumor and speculation to support such a claim, and zero hard evidence.

When Obama produced a "certificate of live birth" from the state of Hawai, doubters simply claimed it was forged and continued to huff and puff. Lawsuits were filed (and dismissed).

Blogs blogged on. Our own "Born in the U.S.A" article, showing close-up photos of the document complete with official signature and raised seal, got more page views than any other article this week, even though we posted it back in August. It is a document that would satisfy the State Department's requirements for proof of citizenship for purposes of getting a passport. But not, of course, those who wish to believe otherwise, whatever the evidence.

When Obama produced a "certificate of live birth" from the state of Hawai, doubters simply claimed it was forged and continued to huff and puff. Lawsuits were filed (and dismissed).

Blogs blogged on. Our own "Born in the U.S.A" article, showing close-up photos of the document complete with official signature and raised seal, got more page views than any other article this week, even though we posted it back in August. It is a document that would satisfy the State Department's requirements for proof of citizenship for purposes of getting a passport. But not, of course, those who wish to believe otherwise, whatever the evidence.

Now, there is even less reason to doubt that Obama was born when and where he has always said. We posted this update to our Born in the U.S.A article:

Update, Nov. 1: The director of Hawaii's Department of Health confirmed Oct. 31 that Obama was born in Honolulu. . . . The Associated Press quoted Chiyome Fukino as saying that both she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino also was quoted by several other news organizations. The Honolulu Advertiser quoted Fukino as saying the agency had been bombarded by requests, and that the registrar of statistics had even been called in at home in the middle of the night.

Honolulu Advertiser, Nov. 1 2008: "This has gotten ridiculous," state health director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said yesterday. "There are plenty of other, important things to focus on, like the economy, taxes, energy." . . . Will this be enough to quiet the doubters? "I hope so," Fukino said. "We need to get some work done."

We say, "amen" to that. You can take it from Hawaii's officials: Obama was born in the U.S.A.

The Truth About Obama's Birth Certificate

Summary

In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document's authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is "fake."

We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

Update, Nov. 1: The director of Hawaii's Department of Health confirmed Oct. 31 that Obama was born in Honolulu.

 

Analysis

Update Nov. 1: The Associated Press quoted Chiyome Fukino as saying that both she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino also was quoted by several other news organizations. The Honolulu Advertiser quoted Fukino as saying the agency had been bombarded by requests, and that the registrar of statistics had even been called in at home in the middle of the night.

Honolulu Advertiser, Nov. 1 2008: "This has gotten ridiculous," state health director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said yesterday. "There are plenty of other, important things to focus on, like the economy, taxes, energy." . . . Will this be enough to quiet the doubters? "I hope so," Fukino said. "We need to get some work done."

Fukino said she has “personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

Since we first wrote about Obama's birth certificate on June 16, speculation on his citizenship has continued apace. Some claim that Obama posted a fake birth certificate to his Web page. That charge leaped from the blogosphere to the mainstream media earlier this week when Jerome Corsi, author of a book attacking Obama, repeated the claim in an Aug. 15 interview with Steve Doocy on Fox News.

    Corsi: Well, what would be really helpful is if Senator Obama would release primary documents like his birth certificate. The campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website. How is anybody supposed to really piece together his life?

    Doocy: What do you mean they have a "false birth certificate" on their Web site?

    Corsi: The original birth certificate of Obama has never been released, and the campaign refuses to release it.

    Doocy: Well, couldn't it just be a State of Hawaii-produced duplicate?

    Corsi: No, it's a -- there's been good analysis of it on the Internet, and it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce.

Corsi isn't the only skeptic claiming that the document is a forgery. Among the most frequent objections we saw on forums, blogs and e-mails are:

  • The birth certificate doesn't have a raised seal.
  • It isn't signed.
  • No creases from folding are evident in the scanned version.
  • In the zoomed-in view, there's a strange halo around the letters.
  • The certificate number is blacked out.
  • The date bleeding through from the back seems to say "2007," but the document wasn't released until 2008.
  • The document is a "certification of birth," not a "certificate of birth."

Recently FactCheck representatives got a chance to spend some time with the birth certificate, and we can attest to the fact that it is real and three-dimensional and resides at the Obama headquarters in Chicago. We can assure readers that the certificate does bear a raised seal, and that it's stamped on the back by Hawaii state registrar Alvin T. Onaka (who uses a signature stamp rather than signing individual birth certificates).

 

Sources

United States Department of State. "Application for a U.S. Passport." Accessed 20 Aug. 2008.

State of Hawaii Department of Health. "Request for Certified Copy of Birth Record." Accessed 20 Aug. 2008.

Hollyfield, Amy. "Obama's Birth Certificate: Final Chapter." Politifact.com. 27 Jun. 2008.

The Associated Press. "State declares Obama birth certificate genuine" 31 Oct 2008.

Nakaso, Dan. "Obama's certificate of birth OK, state says; Health director issues voucher in response to 'ridiculous' barrage" Honolulu Advertiser 1 Nov 2008

Courtesy: FactCheck.org

 

 

NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS ...

WORLD | AFRICA | ASIA | EUROPE | LATIN AMERICA | MIDDLE EAST | UNITED STATES | ECONOMICS | EDUCATION | ENVIRONMENT | FOREIGN POLICY | POLITICS

 

 

© Tribune Media Services