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“As one of two posters here I’m familiar with that are saying Obama (on this issue) has nothing to hide, a simple question;

“Why hasn’t Obama released his Birth Certificate or a certified copy of the same to end the controversy?”

Happy to oblige. I obviously can’t know for certain, but I imagine that it’s a combination of a few different factors.

First, he doesn’t believe that it would, in fact, “end the controversy.” Because, really, it wouldn’t. The entire question of Obama’s birth and eligibility first became an audible issue on June 9, 2008, and they put the COLB online just three days later. And that didn’t end the controversy; it just led to accusations about forgery. When they let FactCheck photograph the document to show the seal and signature, that didn’t end the controversy either; it just led to accusations that FactCheck was complicit or the document is insufficient.

I’ve already seen plenty of people claim that simply releasing a certified copy of a birth certificate wouldn’t be sufficient. Some have already suggested that they would believe such a document to be a forgery too. Plenty of others already have adopted the theory that he’s not eligible because of his father; releasing the birth certificate certainly wouldn’t end that controversy. And when you have people demanding everything from his kindergarten records to his baptism records, releasing a birth certificate alone won’t satiate them. So in that sense, maybe he hasn’t released it because he knows it would be fruitless.

Second, maybe he’s stubborn and doesn’t want to waste any of his own time to try to deal with it. The ‘controversy’ really hasn’t been much of a direct burden on him or his administration. It’s not like it’s an issue they’re having to fight Republicans over in the press or in Congress.

Honestly, despite Hawaii’s privacy rules, I feel that if the President called up Hawaii’s vital records department himself and asked for a photocopy of his long-form, he could get it. But it’s possible that he doesn’t want to, because even making that call is, in its own way, letting the Birthers win. And maybe he doesn’t want to play that kind of PR game.

I actually have a historical analogy for these first two factors. For decades, there have been people claiming that the Apollo missions never landed on the moon, and they always asked why NASA couldn’t simply point a telescope at the moon and take pictures of the landing sites. That, they said, would settle the matter. For years, NASA didn’t care. They figured it wouldn’t settle anything, and they weren’t actually suffering because of the folks who doubted them.

But last year, NASA did point a telescope at the moon and took pictures of the landing sites. And what happened when they released them? The controversy didn’t end. The folks who doubted continued to doubt. They claimed the pictures were forged. They complained the pictures weren’t clear enough. And they continued to argue that we never landed on the moon. I can’t help but think that Obama’s folks saw that reaction, and realized that they’d get exactly the same reaction if they ever released the long-form.

Third, while there hasn’t been a direct political cost from the ‘controversy,’ I think there’s something to the argument that he *benefits* a little bit from it. The Obama camp could easily have looked at the issue and decided that they had more to gain by not trying to end anything. For one thing, if they’re confident in their position (i.e., Obama was born in Hawaii and is eligible), then they know that they will win any ultimate challenge down the line. If they know that they will never lose the controversy, then they also know that every minute of time and every ounce of energy expended by their opponents on the other side is wasted time and energy. Time and energy that, if it wasn’t expended on a fruitless quest that doesn’t actually threaten Obama’s presidency, might instead be spent on issue-based advocacy. Or GOP fundraising.

For another thing, they may also think they stand to gain PR-wise from not stopping the ‘controversy.’ Politics is all about winning the support of moderates, and Obama may have decided that it’s more likely that those moderates will look at the birth controversy as something silly than as something substantive. (Note that I’m not saying they’re *correct* in making such an assessment. I’m just saying that it’s a possible belief they’ve staked out. And, perhaps, have held to out of stubbornness even.)

All that said, I’m not actually opposed to Obama releasing the long-form. I’d be interested if he did. Not because I think it would hold any surprises; I think it’ll reflect all the same information as on the COLB. It’s because I’m not interested in the document itself, but because I’m interested in what the *reaction* would be. It’s my belief that it wouldn’t ‘end’ anything. But the only way to definitively test that hypothesis would be for the document to be released.