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There *is* a problem with the certification that Obama's own website has posted. What has been put out so far isn't valid for any purpose, that's a fact. A fact because it was tampered with, at least in reproduction, as the serial number is cut out, not to mention any seal and signing are too obscured to read. And the resolution is too low to say much else, unless you are a very talented document imaging expert. If they have a real one, sealed and signed, they have not yet shown it. What they put out is then at least, being such a poor image -- a modified, limited hang-out. And that's a fact, too. Why? There's no reason they could not have put out a much better image, and it was -- well, either mean or dumb -- to put out an image of an official document without clearly showing the seal and the official signature.

Fact 1: Not a valid document. "Any alterations invalidate this certificate" -- the Certificate Number is cut out, that's an alteration -- invalid.

Fact 2: A modified, limited hangout. Only one poor quality image, back not shown, seal and signature hardly discernible and totally unreadable. Not the "whole truth", a half truth at best.

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But it is a forgery -- beyond almost any reasonable doubt. That is per the Atlas Shrugged/techdude analysis above.

That's a problem beyond the problem of a "modified, limited hangout".

It was stonewalling, it was the modified, limited hangouts that resulted in Nixon's resignation.

And it should be so -- that we should not accept half-truths of a candidate for president any more than lies.

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Your own narrative storyline re Obama's conception and birth is good too. But so is David's. Fact is that while they both make some similar level of narrative sense consistent and cohesive with known facts and testimony and reasonable inference of motives and patterns of behavior (imo), we don't have the facts to say to and surety whatsoever which is true. Nor can we even assume that Obama himself knows what the facts are. He only heard a legend. The legend of his own birth. That's true for all of us, we have a legend of our birth. Except, fortunately for us and unfortunately for Obama -- and horribly sad for him, so I think, in his considerations and ponderings of the matter, per the between the lines subtext of that poem, perhaps -- many of us have photos, films, multiple pieces of official documents and receipts, multiple living witnesses telling consistent stories. We know the truth. I think it may hurt him very much that he does not.

What has been put out so far isn't valid for any purpose, that's a fact.

Even if the number were not blacked out, it still would not be a valid document because it is an image of the birth certificate. The other Birth Certificates being shown are not valid either. The only valid document is the actual physical copy of the certificate.

Your own narrative storyline re Obama's conception and birth is good too. But so is David's. Fact is that while they both make some similar level of narrative sense consistent and cohesive with known facts and testimony and reasonable inference of motives and patterns of behavior (imo), we don't have the facts to say to and surety whatsoever which is true.

My "storyline" is a very limited conjecture based on the absence of proof of marriage and the social mores of the time -- nothing more. David's, OTOH, is based on conjectures presented as facts -- of airport photos being portrayed as "wedding photos," a pregnant girl's absence from school meaning, ipso facto, that she was living in Kenya, and a suspicion that a birth cert is irregular pointing to the nonexistent "fact" that Obama was therefore born in Kenya. I don't consider those "reasonable inferences" -- no matter how badly he, or you, want them to be true.

I've read all the discussion, pro and con, on the birth cert, and I don't see anything definitive, either way. Again, your points about the cert are conjectures, not facts.

As far as your statement (if that's what it is) that "We know the truth. I think it may hurt him very much that he does not." -- Please. You're dealing with a master manipulator here, who's based a large portion of his political career on his "life story." It took him six years to write his so-called "memoirs." Has it occurred to you that the reason for that may be that he was checking to see how much exaggeration and distortion he could get away with? Do you really think he hasn't had legions of his minions out covering his messiah derriere for the remaining gaps? (The book contradicts itself internally on many points, and there's more than a few incidents in which his narrative has been refuted by people from his past.) If you don't think he's aware that his so-called "life story" is anything but, think again.

When the fawning NY Times has to print a story saying such things as his book is "full of clever tricks — inventions for literary effect...simply the tricks that art trades in," and "He was writing at a time well before a recent series of publishing scandals involving fabrication in memoirs," and "it all had a sort of larger truth going on that you couldn’t make up.” -- What exactly are they saying, other than the book -- and his life, as he presents it -- is, to some predictable degree, a piece of fiction?