Virtual head and shoulders.
Posted on 08/21/2008 4:45:25 PM PDT by Kevmo
Born in the U.S.A.
August 21, 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.
Analysis 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.
–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.
What possible evidence, EVIDENCE, not internet rumors is there that this idoicy is true.
I'm still rankled by being in the same group as the now-discredited TechDude who had the audacity to suggest the forger used solvent to wash the laser ink off the paper.
Oh, they got in a little zinger to me, personally, by dragging out that thoroughly disputed claim of "scanner artifacts."
"Scaner artifact" my lily white arse.
I've already sent them two emails calling them out, but they won't come out, that's for sure.
So, it would be real sweet if I could get the message out to the blogsphere that Polarik is still here and has never been proven wrong.
Memo to FactCheck: "Is that all you got, chump?"
Finaly, does anyone have any idea how just plain stupid this entire line sounds?
***Well, then, refute the technical evidence. Also, think for yourself just a little while. Why did it take so long for Obama to come out with this latest round of evidence? He makes it sound like he had it all along, so that means he was just playing games, if he did have it. Or it means he had to travel to Hawaii to line up his new forgery to the existing evidence if he did not have it. Which of those two approaches require extra time?
In 1992, Gennifer Flowers produced a recording of Bill Clinton’s voice telling her to “lie, just lie” about their affair even under oath. At the time the MSM called that manufactured evidence, even though Flowers was a complete bimbo. We have a moral imperative to pursue this line of inquiry because of what it could mean if it were true, just like we did when all of us threw Flowers under the bus. So, you work the RINO side of the street and we’ll work our side.
Tomorrow, I’m blowing the lid off this latest subterfuge. I’m taking no prisoners.
***Well, don’t keep us in suspense. I’m glad you’re confident but my confidence is waning. Not because I think the birth certificate on FightTheSmears is real, but because the fix is in and the MSM now has enough breathing room to ignore the evidence. If the evidence you produce is not overwhelming, battle will be lost.
This Obama citizenship thing is such a snipe hunt.
If “real” conservatives are going to waste their time chasing rumors built on rumors built on rumors, rather than trying to show American swing voters why Osamabama’s positions and policies are risky and dangerous, then Lord help us.
This Obama citizenship thing is such a snipe hunt.
If “real” conservatives are going to waste their time chasing rumors built on rumors built on rumors, rather than trying to show American swing voters why Osamabama’s positions and policies are risky and dangerous, then Lord help us.
P.S. It reminds me of the income tax scammer who built his entire defense on the fact that the American flag in the courtroom had gold fringe around it, so it was not an official flag, and therefore an illegal court, etc.
22 years, Sukka. When you hot, you hot.
.
I see you’ve given up on posting things of substance, showing that you really are a troll (rather than Pissant) as was discussed in previous threads. RINOs like you are the problem in the republican party. It’s no surprise to find that you choose to snipe at the guys who are doing the most damage to Obama. So if anyone’s going to go on a snipe hunt, it’s for the RINO snipers like you. That’s what the bugzapper thread was for:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1821435/posts
I will make one final attempt to bring you back to rationality, however.
Simple questions:
Who would you rather run against in 2008, Osamabama or the Hildabeast?
For all the reasons that I have posted before, Obama is the Democrat's Primary Election dream, and General Election nightmare.
For all the “coalitions that Dems need to win” reasons, Obama is the best target since Dukakis.
That said, why would you want to do anything now to possibly deny him the nomination? If any of the not-a-citizen foolishness proves to be true, wait until he is the nominated candidate. Wait until about 10 days before the General and throw the Dems into complete disarray.
If is is true, it's a bullet we can shoot only once. Why waste it now, when the results of our “success” would be the nomination of the Hildabeast?!?.
When the opposition is trying to hang themselves, never wrestle them for the rope!
Read what I wrote. I said *if* Obama had been born outside the U.S. he would not be a U.S. citizen at birth.
There is a small group of ‘real conservatives’ that are able to multi-task. As I’ve shown you multiple times. That small group will continue to spend some of its time ferreting out the truth about Obama’s fraudulent early life narrative, including the fake COLB.
There is another small group of ‘conservatives’ that apparently can’t multitask, and instead waste their time in a futile effort to get those who can to ‘talk about the issues’ instead of talking about the issues.
I’m still waiting for your groundbreaking threads on the ‘issues’ that have not been covered dozens of times by me and hundreds of others here.
Wait until about 10 days before the General and throw the Dems into complete disarray.
***Glad to hear you’ll be on board in 10 days. Exactly what would have been your plan in 10 days if no one had been pushing this forward? Would your plan have been to rail against those conservatives who were supposed to have been getting the ball rolling? Well, that’s what I think your plan would have been. Because you basically post nothing of substance.
No offense, but if cows had wings, they could fly.
Under the law as in effect when Obama was born, a child with one non-citizen parent and one U.S. citizen parent would be a U.S. citizen at birth even if born abroad if the U.S. citizen parent had lived 10 years in the U.S., 5 of which were after the age of *14*; Obama’s mother was only 18 when Obama was born, so he would not have been a U.S. citizen at birth had he been born outside of the U.S.
The law was subsequently amended, in 1982 IIRC, and now a child born abroad with one alien parent and one citizen parent is a citizen at birth if the citizen parent lived in the U.S. for at least 5 years, of which at least 2 were after the age of 14. But Obama was born in 1961, not the 1980s, and thus it is the law in effect in 1961 that applied to his citizenship status at birth.
But if Obama was born in Hawaii as he claims (and as the photographed Certificate of Life Birth says), then he was a U.S. citizen at birth and thus a natural-born citizen eligible for the presidency.
After being soundly beaten about the head and shoulders on this point, I retract my statement about Factcheck. Apparently I was wrong...
I used to reference FactCheck.org ocasionally, especially after VP Cheney mentioned them at one of the past presidential debates. (Cheney made the mistake of saying “factcheck.COM” instead of “factcheck.ORG”, Soros quickley purchased the rights to factcheck.com that same night and unsuspecting surfers were redirected to a Soros anti-Bush site!!). I long ago gave up on factcheck.org as a reliable source of info...
Virtual head and shoulders.
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