The Obama "Birth Certificate" Scandal

Cliff Kincaid, the editor of Accuracy in Media, has released a copy of his own birth certificate, in order to demonstrate what needs to be done to resolve the growing controversy over the alleged birth certificate of President Barack Obama. "My birth certificate includes the names of my mother and father, my mother's doctor, and the hospital in which I was born," said Kincaid. "This certified copy of an original long form document is what anyone who wants to be president should be prepared to produce."

Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

The problem, of course, is that this provision does not require public disclosure of detailed information, in the form of a birth certificate with the names of the parents, hospital, and attending physician, and it does not mandate who makes the decision as to whether a particular candidate is constitutional eligible to be president. Our media should be performing that function.

Kincaid described what was on his own birth certificate: "It reveals that my mother's maiden name was Beverly Ann Mason and my father's name was Clifford Paul Kincaid. It says that my mother's doctor was Walter Washburn. He certifies in the document that I was born at 8:38 in the morning. It says that I was born in Research Hospital in Jackson County, Kansas City, Missouri, on May 16, 1954. It says my father worked as a warehouse supervisor for Owens-Corning Fiberglas."

By contrast, the "birth certificate" released by the Obama presidential campaign includes no name of a hospital, a location of that hospital, or a physician. "The contrast between what is on so many birth certificates for ordinary Americans, such as mine, versus what the Obama campaign has released, is striking," said Kincaid. "This contrast is what accounts for the many questions that have arisen and which have given rise to the so-called 'Birther' Movement. Many ordinary Americans are wondering why the major media have not explained why the Obama 'birth certificate' is so lacking in basic and essential information about where he was born and which doctor by name was there when he was born. If he was born in Hawaii, as he claims, then this information should be readily available and printed on the original birth certificate."

"Journalism used to ask who, what, when, where, why and how," said Kincaid. "But today's pro-Obama journalists want to ignore those questions when it comes to the constitutional eligibility of the current occupant of the oval office. They would rather accept what the Obama campaign (and now administration) wants them to believe. The Obama document may reflect what is in another document, but we really have no way of knowing. The only way to address these questions is to identify where exactly he was born, in what hospital, and what doctor was present. All of this information should be on an original birth certificate."

Kincaid continued, "It is not unreasonable to ask questions about Barack Obama's birthplace. Anybody who has an original copy of their own birth certificate, or a certified copy of their own original birth certificate, should immediately understand that the Obama version is lacking in basic information that should be publicly available."

A Newsmax.com story by David A. Patten noted that, contrary to widespread media reports, Hawaiian health officials have not publicly released President Obama's original, "long-form" birth certificate. He explained, "Many media reports have insisted the President's actual birth certificate is available on the Internet for anyone to download. It is not." What is posted, he noted, is Obama's "certification of live birth."

Patten said, "The document is essentially a summary of the actual long form birth certificate. The certification does not list the attending physician, the address or hospital where the delivery took place, or the parents' occupation. Typically, this information is included on the birth certificate."

Indeed, this is the kind of information on the birth certificate posted by AIM Editor Cliff Kincaid

Patten said that, throughout the controversy over whether Obama was not born in the United States and therefore is not constitutionally eligible to serve as president, "anchors and reporters have assumed wrongly that Obama's 'certification of live birth' contains the same information as an original, long-form birth certificate."

For example, Patten noted that MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, who interviewed Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., on July 21, lambasting him for co-sponsoring a House bill that would require presidential candidates to submit documents to establish their constitutional eligibility to serve as president, held up a copy of Obama's certification of live birth-not his birth certificate-as if it put the controversy to rest.

Another MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow, stated on June 11: "This baseless, mouth-breathing, whack-job theory became such an issue during the presidential campaign that Mister Obama did actually release a certificate of his birth from Hawaii, showing that he was born in Honolulu in 1961. And yet, the 'birther' movement persists." Over on CNN, anchor Rick Sanchez held up a document for cameras to zoom in on. "This is a reprint of his birth certificate . . . or as it says here, certificate of birth." The document presented by Sanchez was clearly marked "certification of live birth." It was not the real birth certificate.

Patten noted that critics "point out that Obama is the only modern president whose precise place of birth remains undetermined. Honolulu's Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital has been widely cited as his birthplace, but another Honolulu location has been mentioned as well. The hospital has declined to address whether Obama was born there. Presidential birthplaces typically receive recognition and commemoration."

In order to drive this point home, WorldNetDaily.com editor Joseph Farah has offered $10,000 to the hospital where Obama was born that is listed on his long-form birth certificate.

Farah, whose website has been covering the controversy on a regular basis, says that "Barack Obama claims to have been born in Honolulu Aug. 4, 1961. His entire constitutional claim to the presidency rests on this premise. Yet, he refuses to release a copy of his long-form birth certificate-the only document that could possibly corroborate his claim. Instead, he has released to select news organizations and posted on the Internet a document that could never serve as proof he was born in the United States-a so-called 'certification of live birth,' a digital document that could, can and has been obtained by people who were actually born outside the country. The American people can never be certain their president is legitimate constitutionally without proof."

There were two newspaper birth announcements appearing contemporaneously in two Hawaii daily newspapers about Obama's birth but it's not clear whether they were generated by the issuance of the "certification of live birth" document or something else. In any case, they do not have the information that most people are seeking and which appears in original birth certificates.

WND had previously run on August 23, 2008, an article by Drew Zahn reporting that a group known as FactCheck.org had "obtained Obama's actual certification of live birth and that the document was indeed real." Furthermore, it said, "A separate WND investigation into Obama's certification of live birth utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic."

FactCheck.org had claimed that its staffers had "seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate" and that "We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship." But it was clearly not the "original" birth certificate. And whether it meets the Constitutional requirement to be president is questionable.

In other words, FactCheck.org may have seen an "authentic" document, but it was not Obama's real birth certificate. The same group had also defended Obama's misleading campaign ads about his upbringing. Those ads claimed that he was raised mostly by his grandparents, when we know that Communist Frank Marshall Davis was his mentor for 10 years of his young life. Davis, who was black, had been picked by his grandfather, who was white, to be Obama's father-figure.

Columnist Frank Salvato has noted that hosts on the liberal MSNBC and CNN cable networks haven't been the only ones to attack those who raise questions about Obama's birthplace. He pointed out that Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Michael Medved have been quick to condemn the "birthers" as "a fringe group and a group detrimental to the conservative cause." Salvato says this attitude "is not only irresponsible, it is the antithesis of what they say they provide the public: media entities acting as serious governmental and constitutional watchdogs."

He adds, "What we need is for the conservative media to honestly look out for the Constitution...and right now, they are not."

On April 1, 2009, Andrew Walden, a conservative journalist based in Hawaii, tried to claim on Frontpagemag.com that Obama was in fact born in Hawaii and that "By refusing media requests for a look at the actual paper birth certificate, Obama's campaign gave sly backhanded assistance" to those claiming the version posted was a forgery. He noted, "The internet release of the birth certificate via hyper-partisan website Daily Kos on June 12 before posting it on a campaign website was likely calculated to fuel the frenzy." Walden asserted that the failure to release the long-form document was part of a Marxist strategy by Obama to "redirect the opposition down a blind alley."

He added, "It is time for folks to stop being played by the Obama campaign and drop this counter-productive 'phony birth certificate' nonsense. Obama opponents can find plenty of real material by focusing on the hard-left alliances, stated positions, personnel appointments and policy actions of the Obama administration and of the Democrat-controlled Congress."

Taking a different tack, former CIA officer Larry Johnson believes that Obama was born in Hawaii but that the original birth certificate is being withheld for other reasons.

He wrote on his blog http://www.noquarterusa.net that "Barack Obama was not named 'Barack' in the original birth certificate. He was 'Barry' not Barack. But that's not all. The birth certificate was amended when he was adopted by Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian muslim, around 1968. David Axelrod and Barack Obama decided against trying to explain these issues, worried that the Soetoro birth certificate would reinforce the charge that Barack was a secret muslim. Such a charge would have muddied the waters and alarmed too many folks in the midwest and south. They covered it up and, with the help of an incurious media, kept these questions tamped down."

Meanwhile, CNN's Lou Dobbs has come under a vicious attack by Media Matters, the far-left media "watchdog" group, for merely covering the issue and raising questions about where Obama was born. The leftist group insists that Dobbs is guilty of promoting "racially charged conspiracy theories" because Obama is black.

Media Matters had previously criticized AIM Editor Cliff Kincaid's comments at the Conservative Political Action Conference, when he merely noted that while we knew where President Reagan was born, we don't know for sure where Obama was born.

As we have previously reported, in order to clear up the controversy, Rep. Bill Posey of Florida introduced H. R. 1503, whose purpose is to "amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution." It was referred to the House Committee on House Administration.

If passed, however, this legislation would only impact the 2012 presidential election.

If it were to be proven that President Obama was ineligible to hold office, Salvato notes, "it would throw our country into a constitutional crisis the likes of which has never been seen. There is no provision for removing someone from the office of President or Vice President of the United States who has been deemed-after the fact- ineligible to have run for the office." He says the only possible remedy, impeachment, would be a practical impossibility, considering that Obama's political party controls Congress.

"If someone is not technically the President of the United States how does the Legislative Branch remove him or her from the position? "Because the Commander in Chief would not technically exist and the Vice President wouldn't be technically seated as the President, would the military be prohibited from executing any order to remove the usurper? And who would give that order? "If the Supreme Court ruled that Article 2, Section 1 was not satisfied, where in the Constitution does it authorize them-or any other body-to nullify a federal election? "What would be the constitutional procedure for validating that the usurper was indeed ineligible to hold office and for removing him or her from control of the US military, the Executive Branch departments and the United States' nuclear arsenal?" Interestingly, back in the Winter 1992-93 edition of Parameters, the U.S. Army War College Quarterly, Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. published a fictional article, "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012," in which he speculated about a military takeover because "Americans became exasperated with democracy. We were disillusioned with the apparent inability of elected government to solve the nation's dilemmas. We were looking for someone or something that could produce workable answers. The one institution of government in which the people retained faith was the military."

So as you see it, we should just dismiss the whole issue, never raise it again, and forget about the one underlying fact, that of all of 0bama’s 43 predecessors, not ONE of them went to these sorts of lengths to conceal the origins of their birth, their school records, medical records, travel history, etc. Right?

It's a legitimate political issue, which should be pursued through the political process, along with opposition to Obama's programs and policies. But anyone who expects the courts to throw an elected President out of office is dreaming.

You would think that some journalist would take a look at what is meant by "natural born" Citizen. To me, natural born simply means that your mother and father were each born in the USA.

I am curious how Obama gets around this basic requirement; his father was a British citizen, and not a citizen of the USA. In that situation, Obama has only one parent born in the USA, and therefore is not a natural born Citizen. How did the lawyers get around that requirement?

CRAIG V. US, Aug. 5, 2009 – 10th Circuit Court of Appeals – Native Born Citizens have no Constitutional right to Natural Born Citizen status.

Steven Craig sued the United States in the Western District of Oklahoma where he argued that he was deprived of a Constitutional Right to be determined a Natural Born Citizen.

Mr. Craig was essentially trying to force the courts into making a judicial definition of Natural Born Citizen by asserting that without such a definition, Mr. Craig is deprived of his status as a Natural Born citizen.

Mr. Craig’s suit was dismissed by the District Court. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. The Court rejected the case on the basis that they had no subject matter jurisdiction since there was no injury in fact as none of Mr. Craig’s rights were harmed. It was also held that Mr. Craig did not have standing.

The Court said Mr. Craig had no right to demand the Court affirm or deny his proffered definition of a Natural Born Citizen as a person born within the territorial limits of the United States. The Court also said a Native Born citizen does not have the right be called a Natural Born Citizen. And finally, Mr.
Craig, a US born citizen with both parents who were citizens of the US at the time of his birth, had no right to demand to be classified as a Natural Born Citizen.

Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165-66 (1964) (quoting Osborn v. Bank of U.S., 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 827 (1824)), ... the rights of all citizens, naturalized or native born, are equal, except only Natural Born Citizens are eligible to be POTUS. The Court is reminding us that not all Native Born Citizens are automatically determined to be classified as Natural Born Citizens.

Only the Court or a Constitutional Amendment can determine which Native Born Citizens are Natural Born Citizens.

There are many legal authorities indicating that the definition of a "natural born citizen" is simply a citizen who became such by birth as opposed to naturalization. Under the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a citizen by birth. Under the Supreme Court's decison in Wong Kim Ark v. United States, someone born on U.S. soil of two alien parents is constitutionally a citizen by birth.

There are some legal arguments that "natural born citizen" means something more than "citizen by birth," and I concede that the Supreme Court has never definitively determined that question, but I think the argument is a weak one.

More importantly, from a practical point of view: Obama never made a secret of the fact that his father was never a citizen. Everyone knew that. Despite that, not one of his primary opponents ever challenged his eligibility on that basis; McCain and Palin never challenged his eligibility on that basis; not one state election official declined to put him on the ballot; not one member of the electoral college disputed his eligibility; not one member of Congress, from either party, challeneged his eligibility when Vice president Cheney certified his election; and Chief Justice Roberts swore him in. The idea that, after all of that, some court is now going to overturn the election on that basis is just dreaming. (Might be a different issue if someone can prove that he wasn't born in the U.S., but we'll wait until that happens to see.)

“The fact that none of the petitions got even one vote to hear the case speaks volumes.”

Yes, it certainly does. But that crackpottery, as you call it, is why people became suspicious of Obama’s motives and started to wake up. Nobody likes to be played a fool, and the game playing by this administration to hide documentation - none of which will be believed now if produced - has left a bitter taste.

Thanks for the ping, 2ndDivisionVet.

You’re lying through your teeth. You’re one of the biggest enemies of the Constitution on this entire website. The Constitution states with utmost clarity that ONLY natural born citizens are eligible to be POTUS. As proven by your unwavering support of Soetoro who sports multiple foreign citizenships, you on the other hand clearly and undeniably believe that the presidency is open to every person on earth. You can’t square that with the Constitution no matter how hard you spin.

The Constitution states with utmost clarity that ONLY natural born citizens are eligible to be POTUS.

One of the few factual statements I've seen you make.

As proven by your unwavering support of Soetoro who sports multiple foreign citizenships, you on the other hand clearly and undeniably believe that the presidency is open to every person on earth.

No, I firmly believe that Article II must be followed. What I haven't seen is any evidence that Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Nor have I seen anyone quote the law that says any candidate must produce proof of eligibility and who they must show it to. So what you classify as unwavering support for Obama is merely recognition that no evidence has been produced that he has done anything illegal. Your outraged opinion doesn't count.

And if you want to take the time to look you'll find that I have consistently been one of the biggest supporters of enacting a law to take care of this situation and requiring presidential candidates to produce proof of qualifications. And that I recognize that if it is ever going to happen then it has to be done at the state level - the Democrats may control both houses of Congress but the states control who gets on their ballot, even in federal elections. And I applaud any and all attempts to enact such a law in any state that had proposed it.

"What I haven't seen is any evidence that Obama is not a natural-born citizen."

You have been repeating this for months. The answer is the same as it has always been. Obama has the evidence and refuses to provide it. He has spent hundreds of thousands to avoid doing so.

Instead of telling us you have seen no evidence, why don't you ask Obama to show it to you. I solemnly swear I'm not hiding it.

You have been repeating this for months. The answer is the same as it has always been. Obama has the evidence and refuses to provide it. He has spent hundreds of thousands to avoid doing so.

And that answer has amused me for months, too. So everything you have, everything you believe, every charge you make is based on...nothing? The only evidence in all the world is being held by Obama and you can't see it? That's pretty sad once you get right down to it. Sure, Obama could settle the entire matter in an instant. All he has to do is produce his birth certificate. But since he doesn't seem willing to help, then you all could settle the matter in an instant as well. All you need to do is come up with evidence showing he wasn't born in Hawaii, or evidence that he cannot be a natural-born citizen. And to date you have not done that. You can't do that. And yet you expect to be taken seriously.

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