They assume it was a special invitation, but there's no evidence of that.
The article goes on to pose many questions, although they don't answer any.
The article is full of inuendo, and very short on facts. As far as I could tell, there are only two facts they bring up:
1) The photos of the COLB were taken within a 6 minute time from. They seem to attach a lot of significance to this, but I'm not sure why. I can't see why it should take a photographer any longer to take picutres of a single document. Six minutes seems like a pretty reasonable timeframe. Furthermore, just because it only took them 6 minutes to photograph the document doesn't mean they only spent 6 minutes looking at the document.
2) The date stamped on the photographs was from March. Again, they attach a lot of significance to this, but I don't see why that's warranted. It either means they examined the document in March, or the date on their digital camera was off. How exactly that is supposed to invalidate the photographs is beyond me.
They also make a lot of assertions about the lighting and image quality, which simply don't ring true. The lighting and image quality seem fine to me. I don't see what they are talking about.
Oh, and of course, they bring up the Annenberg connection, which they totally misrepresent.
If you want to understand that point, Google Lenore Annenberg and read about her political donations over the last 10 years. If anything, the Annenberg connection strengthens the credibility of factcheck.
There is no evidence of anything regarding this subject. There is just an extract document that was given for any births (even foreign) that were registered in Hawaii within one year of the birth.
What there is not is the actual hospital document that was filed within 24 hours of the birth and signed by the doctor. McCain provided one, and his is 30 years older than Obama's. I also have a photostat of my document from another state, with reverse color white text on black background.
It would take something like that, from the hospital at the time of birth, to make this go away. Summary documents, no matter how authentic, that were also given to the foreign-born, are not enough in today's information age.
-PJ
curiosity: "They assume it was a special invitation, but there's no evidence of that."
Reporters have asked for the COLB but Obama refused.
Jim Geraghty from National Review, June 9th, 2008, "Reporters have asked for it and been denied, and the state of Hawaii does not make such records public."
St. Petersburg Times April 18th, 2008, "We tried to obtain a copy of Obama's birth certificate, but his campaign would not release it"
A special invitation from Obama appears to be just what happened.