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FactCheck.org: Obama's birth certificate and citizenship validated
Factcheck.org ^ | 11/1/08 | factcheck.org

Posted on 11/26/2008 2:44:07 PM PST by urobolus

Born in the U.S.A. August 21, 2008 Updated: November 1, 2008 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). We even brought home a few photographs.

The Obama birth certificate, held by FactCheck writer Joe Miller

Alvin T. Onaka's signature stamp

The raised seal

Blowup of text

You can click on the photos to get full-size versions, which haven't been edited in any way, except that some have been rotated 90 degrees for viewing purposes.

The certificate has all the elements the State Department requires for proving citizenship to obtain a U.S. passport: "your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records." The names, date and place of birth, and filing date are all evident on the scanned version, and you can see the seal above.

The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response.

The scan released by the campaign shows halos around the black text, making it look (to some) as though the text might have been pasted on top of an image of security paper. But the document itself has no such halos, nor do the close-up photos we took of it. We conclude that the halo seen in the image produced by the campaign is a digital artifact from the scanning process.

We asked the Obama campaign about the date stamp and the blacked-out certificate number. The certificate is stamped June 2007, because that's when Hawaii officials produced it for the campaign, which requested that document and "all the records we could get our hands on" according to spokesperson Shauna Daly. The campaign didn't release its copy until 2008, after speculation began to appear on the Internet questioning Obama's citizenship. The campaign then rushed to release the document, and the rush is responsible for the blacked-out certificate number. Says Shauna: "[We] couldn't get someone on the phone in Hawaii to tell us whether the number represented some secret information, and we erred on the side of blacking it out. Since then we've found out it's pretty irrelevant for the outside world." The document we looked at did have a certificate number; it is 151 1961 - 010641.

Blowup of certificate number

Some of the conspiracy theories that have circulated about Obama are quite imaginative. One conservative blogger suggested that the campaign might have obtained a valid Hawaii birth certificate, soaked it in solvent, then reprinted it with Obama's information. Of course, this anonymous blogger didn't have access to the actual document and presents this as just one possible "scenario" without any evidence that such a thing actually happened or is even feasible.

We also note that so far none of those questioning the authenticity of the document have produced a shred of evidence that the information on it is incorrect. Instead, some speculate that somehow, maybe, he was born in another country and doesn't meet the Constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural-born citizen."

We think our colleagues at PolitiFact.com, who also dug into some of these loopy theories put it pretty well: "It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over."

In fact, the conspiracy would need to be even deeper than our colleagues realized. In late July, a researcher looking to dig up dirt on Obama instead found a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961:

Obama's birth announcement

The announcement was posted by a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger who grudgingly concluded that Obama "likely" was born Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu. Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday. We suggest that those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat. The evidence is clear: Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A.

Update, August 26: We received responses to some of our questions from the Hawaii Department of Health. They couldn't tell us anything about their security paper, but they did answer another frequently-raised question: why is Obama's father's race listed as "African"? Kurt Tsue at the DOH told us that father's race and mother's race are supplied by the parents, and that "we accept what the parents self identify themselves to be." We consider it reasonable to believe that Barack Obama, Sr., would have thought of and reported himself as "African." It's certainly not the slam dunk some readers have made it out to be.

When we asked about the security borders, which look different from some other examples of Hawaii certifications of live birth, Kurt said "The borders are generated each time a certified copy is printed. A citation located on the bottom left hand corner of the certificate indicates which date the form was revised." He also confirmed that the information in the short form birth certificate is sufficient to prove citizenship for "all reasonable purposes."

–by Jess Henig, with Joe Miller 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.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: annenberg; bho2008; certifigate; colbtroll; factcheck; newbie; sionnsar; sniff; soroskneepadder; trollfortheone; trolltimer; zerokneepadder; zerozottee; zot; zotbait
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To: 50mm

This just in:

1 out of 9 dentists also agree with factcheck.org


141 posted on 11/26/2008 3:54:48 PM PST by xmission (www.iwilldefendtheconstitution.com)
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To: urobolus

Looks like the Mods stuffed this turkey!!


142 posted on 11/26/2008 3:55:01 PM PST by airborne
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To: adorno
Heck, in addition to what you asked, why pay THREE TEAMS of lawyers to fight these suits against him, when a simple and FREE means to end them is at your disposal? Why on earth is he going to such lengths and expense, to fight producing his BC??

Obviously he has something to hide.

143 posted on 11/26/2008 3:55:39 PM PST by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: Azzurri

Let’s just replace the judiciary and other constitutional systems with factcheck.org.

You can trust ‘em. There’re here to help.

Not.

Look, I am not in any way, shape or form convinced that there is a problem with Obama’s qualification for the presidency. That said, I don’t know that he is qualified and there doesn’t seem to be any legal mechanism-—short of a lawsuit on grounds very difficult to raise and have heard-—that officially vets presidential candidates, or at least the President-elect.

(And, yes, I have participated in highly interesting legal discussions on this case. That is different from concluding Obama is not qualified.)

Obama was willing to release his BC once. That obviously did not answer the questions, simply because there apparently are two types of BC in Obama’s case.

So if he was willing to release the short form, what is the problem for him in releasing the long form? THAT and ONLY THAT is what has continued to fuel this controversy.

Regardless of the ultimate conclusion, we have all learned that NO ONE apparently verifies that a candidate is, in fact, eligible for the presidency and no one, as yet, has figured out a way inside the constitutional system to challenge (verify) a candidate’s, or a President-elect’s, eligibility.

That is not too much to ask. The law is not settled in this area, there are many factual permutations that could arise, and there is no mechanism to vet the citizenship of those placed on presidential ballots.

Sure, there is (maybe) a procedure for the electors to object to a candidate’s qualifications, but nowhere does there appear to be a responsibility to do so or to affirmatively verify the candidate’s qualifications.

Many SOS’s have taken the position that it is “not my job” to verify eligibility for office of those placed on their state’s presidential ballots. They say their job is ministerial only. Okay, that may be true in the absence of specific statutory requirements, but if so, maybe that needs to be changed. Maybe the Supreme Court needs to weigh in on whether that needs to be changed.

In short, even if you don’t think there is any there “there” re Obama’s qualifications, it’s appropriate to support having the Donofrio case heard by the Supreme Court. They could address these matters and especially point out where the law is deficient in procedures and safeguards to ensure that our President is eligible under the Constitution. Moreover, they could give us some idea of how it would be appropriate (on what grounds, how would standing arise) to challenge (verify) the qualification of a President-elect under the Constitution.

These are good things.

Never mind any particular candidate, we cannot remain in this “do loop” where, essentially, no one without a court order can force the production of a BC of a President-elect, but no one without a BC showing a deficiency in qualifications has standing to force verification of the PE’s qualifications. There is not even an explicit official duty given to an public official upon which a citizen could file a Writ of Mandamus to force the official to verify a PE’s qualification. This is untenable.

The SCOTUS should address:

1. The effect, if any, of the citizenship of Obama’s father (which may have made Obama a British subject by birth) on his “natural born citizen” status. (This assumes Obama was born in Hawaii and there are not factual ambiguities there.)

2. The effect, if any, of the fact that McCain was born outside the U.S. to parents who were U.S. citizens on his “natural born citizen” status.

3. The need, if any, for additional procedures to vouchsafe the constitutional requirement that the President be a “natural born citizen,” and, if needed, when in the process such vetting should occur.

4. The grounds upon which standing is achieved in such extraordinary circumstances.


144 posted on 11/26/2008 3:56:19 PM PST by fightinJAG (TWO BIG BUSH TAX CUTS EXPIRE AT THE END OF 2008. Happy New Year, love, President Obama)
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To: urobolus

145 posted on 11/26/2008 3:56:23 PM PST by PA Engineer (Liberate America from the occupation media.)
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To: Peter Horry

“Some authority should also be charged with the responsibility of verifying the information”

How about candidates have to provide proof of elligibility to each individual voting district before their name can go on the ballot? How hard would that be?


146 posted on 11/26/2008 3:57:06 PM PST by Tublecane
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To: urobolus

Dude.

Until Barry Zer-O produces a certified, bonafied copy, I believe nothing.

So:

Welcome to FR.

Now:

Get Zotted.


147 posted on 11/26/2008 3:57:56 PM PST by roaddog727 (BS does not get bridges built - the funk you see is the funk you do)
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To: NOBAMA in 08

In less than two weeks we will have an answer to tv BC question from Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alieto and Scalia.


148 posted on 11/26/2008 3:58:14 PM PST by trumandogz (The Democrats are driving us to Socialism at I00 MPH -The GOP is driving us to Socialism at 97.5 MPH)
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To: Tublecane
How hard would that be?

Evidently pretty hard in this case...
149 posted on 11/26/2008 3:58:19 PM PST by xmission (www.iwilldefendtheconstitution.com)
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To: urobolus

You said — “I’ve always been suspicious of this birth certificate controversy...”

Well, here is what I’m *most suspicious* about.

Okay, let’s start with this (whatever it was) document from the Obama campaign that is supposed to be the document that proves the issue of where Obama was born. And then, let’s go with the idea that this website examined it and handled it and so on...

Okay so far....

Now, *here* is the *extremely suspicious* part.

Let’s go to the next step and say someone has filed a court case saying Obama wasn’t a natural-born citizen - WELLLLLL.... - then it would figure that all Obama would have to do is simply give over to the court the very document that he has been “parading around” to “prove to the court” that there’s no issue.

SOoooo..., does Obama do that? NOPE!!

What does Obama do, even though he has what is purported to be a legitimate document proving that he is a natural-born citizen????

Welllll..., Obama spends several hundred thousand dollars in court costs and lawyers fees — *fighting* — against “showing” his birth certificate!!??

WAIT A MINUTE...., I thought Obama just did that???

Uhhhh..., well, Obama probably realizes that what he’s shown is *not legal* and not worth the paper it’s printed on — otherwise — he would simply “run on down to the courthouse” with the document that the campaign was parading around and the document that was “analyzed” on that website... LOL...

As you can see..., something is *awfully wrong* with the documentation that Obama has provided... :-0


150 posted on 11/26/2008 3:58:45 PM PST by Star Traveler
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To: xmission
This just in: 1 out of 9 dentists also agrees with factcheck.org


151 posted on 11/26/2008 3:59:26 PM PST by 50mm (Waiting anxiously for my bailout.)
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To: darkangel82
check the first two names on my post


152 posted on 11/26/2008 4:00:28 PM PST by darkwing104 (Lets get dangerous)
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To: xmission

factcheck.com: kid tested, mother approved


153 posted on 11/26/2008 4:01:01 PM PST by SerafinQ
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To: darkwing104

Which one was Target Two?


154 posted on 11/26/2008 4:01:57 PM PST by Old Sarge (For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to be an American)
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To: airborne; NOBAMA in 08; piytar; Peter Horry; TXnMA; darkwing104; adorno; ...

Here is a link you may want to keep handy:

http://polarik.blogtownhall.com/2008/11/22/obamas_born_conspiracy_forged_images,_phony_photos,_and_felony_fraud.thtml

Factcheck.org has already been discredited.

Please see this very comprehensive and well documented report by Ron Polarik, PhD. (scroll down)


155 posted on 11/26/2008 4:02:53 PM PST by CaraM (Faithless is he who quits when the road darkens.)
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To: airborne

156 posted on 11/26/2008 4:03:22 PM PST by xmission (www.iwilldefendtheconstitution.com)
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To: xmission
Crap. This is what I meant to post...


157 posted on 11/26/2008 4:04:25 PM PST by xmission (www.iwilldefendtheconstitution.com)
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To: dragonblustar

Oh, yes, the dreaded Viking kitties!! I haven’t seen them in a while! It’s definitely time to sick those on the Obot trolls!


158 posted on 11/26/2008 4:05:48 PM PST by montesquieu
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To: darkwing104

Agree. Suspicious history.


159 posted on 11/26/2008 4:06:07 PM PST by 50mm (Waiting anxiously for my bailout.)
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160 posted on 11/26/2008 4:07:50 PM PST by xmission (www.iwilldefendtheconstitution.com)
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