Obama Releases Birth Certificate
I'm very surprised by the White House decision to release copies of President Obama's birth certificate. I thought the issue so clearly helped Obama. So long as reasonable detraction could somehow be tied to crazy birth conspiracy theorists, it aroused compassion for the president.
But, apparently, with Donald Trump highlighting the questions (and independents beginning to question the circumstances of his birth), it became a difficult issue for the White House.
And yet, I can't help but think that this was unwise. It's not as if this will calm the birthers down or cause them to respond reasonably. And now that the White House has engaged, they'll have to keep engaged.
Either way, press conference at 9:45 AM featuring the president himself.
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Oct '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
In the context of the birth certificate issue, I always considered it a further example of the economic ineptitude of the president. In order to prevent it's release to the general public for years, he has incurred staggering legal fees. If he is that careless with his own money and campaign contributions, how does that instill any confidence by the general public in any budget he proposes? As shown today, this issue could be for the most part smothered, if not extinguished, by a simple press conference and pdf.
Apr '11
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Is Hawaii actually part of America? I mean, the last time I was in Honolulu, the ubiquitous ABC stores all had signs saying they accepted Japanese Yen as currency. Maybe the president was actually born in Japan!
Just sayin' ...
Jul '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
The President just blinked in a staring contest with Donald Trump, giving the Don a lot more credibility than he had yesterday. I don't see how that was smart for the White House, though I don't know why I'm surprised any longer when they do things that aren't very smart...
May '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
I made a joke earlier about Photoshop, but if you blow up the PDF (which in itself is a Photoshop file), I wonder about the white spaces around every letter. But that's the problem with anything digital. There will always be doubt. I know that, with decent hi-res starting materials, I could produce that end product.
Had I been staging this morning's proceedings for the President I would have said, "We invited ABC's Jake Tapper to go to Hawai'i and witness first hand the process of producing this document..."
Dec '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
EJHill
I made a joke earlier about Photoshop, but if you blow up the PDF (which in itself is a Photoshop file), I wonder about the white spaces around every letter. But that's the problem with anything digital. There will always be doubt. I know that, with decent hi-res starting materials, I could produce that end product.
Had I been staging this morning's proceedings for the President I would have said, "We invited ABC's Jake Tapper to go to Hawai'i and witness first hand the process of producing this document..." · Apr 27 at 10:08am
What you're seeing is a photo of a photocopy. The photocopy was taken from a bound book -- I would guess that the Department of Health bound all its original Certificates of Live Birth into books for safekeeping -- which is discernible from the curling and curving in the image. You can see the fingers of the person holding up the photocopy to the camera. So this image is at least a couple of generations removed from the original, but it looks legit to me.
Dec '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Richard Russell: I cracked a joke about remembering to use a real typewriter this time, and boy did that backfire. A gang of real conspiracy theorists is rallying to my pretend flag.
I refute my joke and wash my hands of it! Our president is qualified to be our president. · Apr 27 at 8:55am
Well, obviously he is completely unqualified to be our President, as evidenced by his abysmal job performance.
Remember back in 2008 when Bill Clinton said "of course he's qualified - he's over 35 and born in the USA"? And everyone said that Clinton was being dismissive and belittling Obama?
Well, as it turns out, being eligible under the Constitution has almost nothing to do with being qualified to execute the duties of the office.
Dec '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
TeeJaw:
Assuming it is authentic, would anyone dare question why something so innocuous was withheld so long? Well, only a nut cake would be so bumptious, right? · Apr 27 at 7:40am
That's easy: once he lucked into so many people questioning his summary Certificate of Live Birth and pursuing alternative theories of his birth, he realized that the backlash against Birthers was helping him to beat Hillary and then McCain.
He kept the issue alive because he thought he could sucker the chief actors in the Republican Party, including those likely to run against him, into making claims that he was born outside the USA, and then he'd be able to drop the original Certificate of Live Birth on them like a bomb of foolishness.
However, when Donald Trump came after him, he was forced to play the real birth certificate card prematurely, rather than at a crucial juncture of the general election campaign.
And, having caved on the birth certificate, it will be very hard for Obama to hold the line on his college and law school transcripts. He can't say that they're impossible to find, or that they aren't our business.
May '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
But that is my point, Stuart. The problem with the CBS Texas Air National Guard memos is that they were too clean. Part of the professional forger's job is to age documents. As someone earlier in the thread pointed out, it's a chain of custody thing. A photocopy and a PDF file would be inadmissible in court.
Twenty years ago as CGI effects in movies became better and Photoshop became more and more popular, Broadcasting and Cable magazine published an article called "The coming crisis in journalism." It predicted that photo manipulation would be used by the political class to manipulate the press and the public. You simply can not accept anything on its face.
I looked at the file in Photoshop. I know I could do that and I know dozens of people better than me.
I am not saying it is a forgery. I'm just saying that it should have been produced outside of the White House 'cause this group hasn't exactly proven to anyone that they are beyond a few lies.
May '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
The other thought that I had is this: Now that we have a birth certificate, what do you think about using it to open a credit card account with the First People's Bank of Beijing and running up a tab of several trillion dollars?
Dec '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Trump ruined Mr. Obama's timing by taking the birth certificate out of the 2012 campaign where its disclosure would have acted to quell unwelcome attention to a host of other mysteries surrounding him. Continued focus on the birth certificate served Mr. Obama's interest a a diversion from these matters. The MSM would have gone into full protection mode and carried Mr. Obama through the time remaining before election day by denigrating anyone who wanted disclosure of other records.
Now premature attention (from Mr. Obama's perspective) will move to the remaining mysteries among which are his Indonesian adoption and the virtual certainty that he became a citizen of that country as a child, potential claims of foreign student status in his college records, the very substantial affirmative action boost he got during his college years, the source of funds that paid for his pricey education, the passports he has used and the unexplained, magical Connecticut social security number. This is a major problem for Mr. Obama as these issues now come to the forefront and the time frame for their examination is lengthened and will not be compressed into the 2012 electoral cycle.
Oct '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
It's not as if this will calm the birthers down or cause them to respond reasonably.
True. Birther friends on Facebook have transitioned seamlessly from "where's the certificate?" to "it's a fake!" My suggestion that we're better off opposing Obama for what he's DONE is falling on deaf ears.
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
In the past two years I wrote a column for FoxNews.com and one for Daily Caller about the President's birth.
In both, I stated upfront I wasn't a birther and believed the President to be born in Hawaii.
The remainder of each column questioned only why the President would hesitate to allow an innocuous document to be published, and blamed him for the continuation of the controversy for not doing so.
Both times Media Matters did a hit piece on me afterward, in an attempt to put me in the "kook" category, here and here.
Now that the document is shown to be as innocuous as I predicted, it seems clear the continuation of controversy was his fault as I stated. He could have released this pre-election.
Should I ask Media Matters for an apology?
Jan '11
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
I have to be honest - I thought that there was something he was hiding on that certificate. While I thought he was born here, I was done giving him the benefit of the doubt and wanted the document produced. Why now? Why use that trump card (pun intended). I'm guessing that this will be used to deflect against any other documentation requests - 'enough of these distractions from the right.....'
Was also thinking that by 'puffing up' a win for Trump (similar to that budget 'win' for Boehner) - it keeps Trump in the race for a longer period of time to distract & do more damage to the GOP. Obama won both those stand-offs and gave up very little.
Nov '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Like most folks on Ricochet, I have had no interest at all in the issue of Obama's birth certificate. I have to say, however, that the use of the word "African" strikes me as being no less unusual than if somebody produced a birth certificate from, say, Alabama in the 1950's or early 60's employing the term "African-American."
Hawaii has had a racially heterogeneous population since the late 18th century. I am sure that "race" was not always as easily denoted in Hawaii as it was in other parts of America. Even in the mid-19th century, most of the inhabitants had complex "racial" backgrounds. Perhaps, a different racial nomenclature evolved there, different from the mainland.
Surely, somebody on Ricochet must know somebody of African-American descent, born in Hawaii around the time of Obama's birth-- ideally, at the same hospital-- who could compare their certificate to his... I am NOT a birther, nor do I want to get into conspiracy theories-- but I was very intrigued to see "African" on this particular birth certificate.
Jul '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Tommy De Seno:
Should I ask Media Matters for an apology?
Yes, I think you should.
And while you are at it, pound your thumb with a hammer because you know how good it will feel when you stop.
Then find a reasonably solid brick wall to beat your forehead against.
Right!
Edited on Apr 27, 2011 at 12:58pmMar '11
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Karen: Maybe he didn't want folks reminded what a dirtbag his father was, a grown man fathering a child with an underage girl?
I'm sure I read somewhere BHO1 already had a wife and child back in Kenya. Can anyone tell us if this was true or false?
I have always believed the 'birther' conspiracy theory had it origins in the Democrats' questioning McCain's eligibility to run because he was born in the Panama canal zone, in the fact Obama won his first elected office through a legal technicality about an opponent's nomination petition, and the fact that in a later contest selected excerpts from confidential divorce documents of not one but two opponents got published in newspapers, purely by coincidence, of course.
Personally, I can think of far more weighty reasons for loathing the bastard.
Mar '11
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
JoBeth Gerrard: Obama's birth certificate is an obvious fake. African is not a race. Prior to 1966 and for a long time after that, all government forms used the word "Negro" or "Negroid" as a race. And anyone in school in the 60's knows this. · Apr 27 at 8:28am
I wonder, if the father had been Belgian, would the form have said Belgium Western Europe.
Nov '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Wow-- I just discovered that I may be a "birther," after all! A cursory glance at various (birther) internet sites reveals that many of these people seem to be, like me, intrigued by the use of the term "African" on the birth certificate.
In 1961, Jim Crow laws were, for the most part, still in place. The legal and commonplace language of the day referred to people of African descent as "Negroes."
Obama's mother and father were both enraptured with some sort of Socialist/Marxist worldview. Perhaps, because of their political orientation, they objected to the term "Negro" and insisted on "African" instead. Would such a request have been granted? I do not know. If the term "Negro" was politically unacceptable to Obama's parents, why did they allow his mother to be designated "Caucasian," rather than, say, European?
Alternately, was it, perhaps, simply common practice in Hawaii in 1961 to substitute "African" for "Negro?" Again, I do not know. I do know, however, that people of Asian descent in Hawaii were, until long after 1961, racially categorized as being "Oriental"-- not "Asian."
Are there no Ricochet members from Hawaii who could shed light on this (small) issue?
Nov '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
I'd like to see the left side of the certificate.. This is part of a larger sheet -- which is made clear in higher density, full-colour images showing the background pattern of the paper. Why is the certificate number given here, but redacted on the less-official Certification of Live Birth? Why is "P.M." In two different fonts?
The document shown is physically stamped "April 25 2011"and signed by the State Registrar. Why? This apparently means the Obamas either don't have a copy (which they could have released earlier than 2 days ago, obviously) or that they don't wish to show their copy? Why is the box indicating the attendant is an M.D. smudged as if it were filled in and then an attempt was made to erase it? Why are there faint handwritten numerals and other marks appearing at apparently meaningless places on the page?
I reject the birther hypothesis, but my view is that the Obamas have a copy of the certificate, but that it has been defaced in some way, that would prove an embarrassment if it were shown.
The release was timed to minimize damage.
Nov '10
Re: Obama Releases Birth Certificate
Maybe 40 minutes ago, I looked at the Kapiolani web site. According to that site, the hospital was officially called Kapiolani Maternity Home until 1977, when the name was changed to Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital, In 1978 Kapiolani merged with Kauikeolani Children's Hospital and the new entity was named Kapiolani Medical Center. I then went to the Hawaii Historical Society to double-check, and to see if the name "Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital" might have been in use prior to the 1970's. On their site, all references to Kapiolani employ the name Kapiolani Maternity Home prior to 1978, when the merger occurred. My wife suggested that I "screen capture" the relevant history from the Kapiolani web site... But, over the course of maybe 40 minutes, the information on the Kapiolani site has seemingly been changed! All references to "Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital" have been removed! I am willing to concede that, perhaps, I somehow misread the information when I first saw it. Or maybe my wife and I are lapsing into some sort of paranoid state. Has anybody on Ricochet looked the Kapiolani web site prior to, say 5:45 EST today?
Edited on Apr 28, 2011 at 3:00am