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His Mother spent a lot of time abroad — he could have been born outside of the US.

The problem is that given the controversy and the implication, why doesn't Obama show his actual birth certificate, putting all questions to rest, or authorize some journalists to request and obtain a certified copy from Hawaii.

http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/vital-records/vital_records.html

“If you are applying for a certificate on behalf of someone else, you must provide an original letter signed by that person authorizing the release of their certificate to you.”

Shades of John Kerry refusing to sign his 180 form.

"If Obama wasn't born in Hawaii, then where was he born?"

Kenya.

There purports to be a Guardian interview over two years ago with the "grandmother" and two half-siblings in which they claim to have been present at his birth in Kenya.

Today's news at gaywired.com quoting an update to a Wayne Madsen report is that an investigative team researching Obama's history in Africa has found "a certificate registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr. to his father, a Kenyan citizen, and mother, an American citizen" in Mombasa.

There is an extensive thread earlier this week documenting the deficiencies in the Hawaii Birth Certificate argument. The Certificate actually posted by the Obama campaign is clearly fraudulent on its face.

No witnesses have appeared in connection with a widely publicized claimed birth in 1961. There is no hospital record of the claimed birth. News media of the era published birth records as vital statistics--Obama's birth does not appear. One of the hospitals claimed as a birth location was built after the claimed birth date.

The legal on this question works like this. The US Constitution says specifically that to be eligible to be elected President of the US, a person must be a "natural born" US citizen.

There has been significant discussion about citizenship statutes which provide that a person born outside the US to two US citizens becomes a citizen at birth without a naturalization proceeding; another provision is that a person born outside the US with a single US citizen parent (and a non-citizen parent) becomes a citizen at birth without a naturalization proceeding but only if the US parent had resided in the US for ten years prior to the birth, at least five of which ten years were after such US parent had reached the age of 21.

Obama's only claim under the naturalization statute would fail because his mother, only 18 when he was born, could not, by definition, have met the five years after 21 requirement. Absent a naturalization proceeding, if he were born outside the US, Obama may not even be a US Citizen at all.

Constitutional historical documents make it clear that the drafters (natural born citizen) meant born in the actual territory of the US.

As pointed out by Ted Olson in a legal memo addressed to the John McCain citizenship issue, the Constitutional requirement is not subject to definition by Congress--the "natural born citizen" requirement is a Constitutional question--the fact that a person might qualify to avoid naturalization is irrelevant.

As Olson pointed out, even the McCain qualification is in doubt. Sure, Senator McCain is a citizen under the naturalization statutes. But that has no bearing on the question of whether he meets the Constitutional test which in my own view, he does not.

If this issue ever gets to the table, assuming the facts demonstrate that Obama was born in Kenya, in my opinion, neither one of the presumed nominees meets the Constitutional qualification requirement.