Obama Caves to Birthers

[the4thpip]

President Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate
Posted by Dan Pfeiffer on April 27, 2011 at 08:57 AM EDT

In 2008, in response to media inquiries, the President’s campaign requested his birth certificate from the state of Hawaii. The state sent the campaign the President’s birth certificate, the same legal documentation provided to all Hawaiians as proof of birth in state, and the campaign immediately posted it on the internet. That birth certificate can be seen here (PDF).

When any citizen born in Hawaii requests their birth certificate, they receive exactly what the President received. In fact, the document posted on the campaign website is what Hawaiians use to get a driver’s license from the state and the document recognized by the Federal Government and the courts for all legal purposes. That’s because it is the birth certificate. This is not and should not be an open question.

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting. President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate can be seen here (PDF):

At a time of great consequence for this country – when we should be debating how we win the future, reduce our deficit, deal with high gas prices, and bring stability to the Middle East, Washington, DC, was once again distracted by a fake issue. The President’s hope is that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues that matter to the American people and the future of the country.
Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/...th-certificate

[Puma]

waits for the "why this doesn't prove" theories in one, two, ...

[Nick Soapdish]

waits for the "why this doesn't prove" theories in one, two, ...

Oh sure, now he provides one - after he's had two years to perfect the forgery.

[ChadH]

If it will give Donald Trump one less thing to ignorantly rant about, then I'm all for it

[Sean Walsh]

He didn't cave to birthers........



He did what the Donald told him to do, and caved to the next President of the United States.

[Puma]

The Donald is already moving on to why Obama only made it in an Ivy league school because, one assumes, he is black.

[the4thpip]

"Today I'm very proud of myself, because I've accomplished something that no one else has been able to accomplish," said Trump on the release of the president's birth certificate, according to NBC News. "I want to look at it, but I hope it's true. ... But he should have done it a long time ago."

Makes me want to vomit.

[Anodyne]

Obama's mother was a United States citizen when he was born. That makes him a United States citizen by birth no matter where he was born.

[Puma]

ah, the idiots are out and about on Yahoo comments section.

[Iangould]

If it will give Donald Trump one less thing to ignorantly rant about, then I'm all for it

You're overlooking the Law of Conservation of Ignorant Ranting.

[The Cool Thatguy]

You're overlooking the Law of Conservation of Ignorant Ranting.

I dunno, he's been ignoring it a while and it still ain't gone away. Guess we'll see where it goes from here...

I'm just glad history will judge all the birthers as racist assholes, though.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I checked Free Republic to see what the response to this was. Although there are some people there willing to accept it and move on, a lot of the other common responses seem to include:

Shopped.
A certificate of live birth is not a birth certificate.
His father is Kenyan so he's still not an American citizen, apparently forgetting their own "anchor babies" nonsense.
He needs to release records to prove he did not at some point renounce this citizenship.

So, in the end the narrative shifts only a little. Obama somehow conspired to have himself born in the United States as an American citizen and then live most of his life here as one, all the better to spring from the shadows as a secret Muslim and make men wear the burqa when he wins a second term.

[Puma]

I checked Free Republic to see what the response to this was. Although there are some people there willing to accept it and move on, a lot of the other common responses seem to include:

Shopped.
A certificate of live birth is not a birth certificate.
His father is Kenyan so he's still not an American citizen, apparently forgetting their own "anchor babies" nonsense.
He needs to release records to prove he did not at some point renounce this citizenship.

So, in the end the narrative shifts only a little. Obama somehow conspired to have himself born in the United States as an American citizen and then live most of his life here as one, all the better to spring from the shadows as a secret Muslim and make men wear the burqa when he wins a second term.

and...

Wed Apr 27 2011 07:24:09 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) · by SonsOfLibertyII
No reason to rush and make knee jerk reactions lets have a couple document experts examine the original first just to confirm and verify. By failing to release it when it initially became an issue, anything now produced merits much more intense scrutiny. Obama’s people have had over 3 years to FORGE 336 characters/certificate marks. Even for a D student you can do a bang up job if you have available a free 3 days per letter to work on forging a document.

[the4thpip]

UPDATE: 9:54 a.m.: President Obama spoke briefly to reporters, taking no questions afterward. Mr. Obama said that he knows that the release of his birth certificate won't satisfy everyone, but that he's doing this for the majority of the American people. He said that he has watched with "bemusement" as the birth certificate issue dragged on, and sounded frustrated that the questions about it had dominated the news cycle even during the recent budget fight. Americans face difficult challenges right now, and we can't fix them if we're divided, distracted, and just plain making stuff up. (That's a rough paraphrase, but not that rough.)

"We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers," Mr. Obama said. He added, "We do not have time for this kind of silliness."

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_new...p-takes-credit

And now "carnival barker" - not "birth certificate" is trending on Twitter. Including complaints from right wingers that Obama had promised a "new tone" but now "called Trup a carnival barker"

[Loren]

I checked Free Republic to see what the response to this was. Although there are some people there willing to accept it and move on, a lot of the other common responses seem to include:

Shopped.
A certificate of live birth is not a birth certificate.
His father is Kenyan so he's still not an American citizen, apparently forgetting their own "anchor babies" nonsense.
He needs to release records to prove he did not at some point renounce this citizenship.

So, in the end the narrative shifts only a little. Obama somehow conspired to have himself born in the United States as an American citizen and then live most of his life here as one, all the better to spring from the shadows as a secret Muslim and make men wear the burqa when he wins a second term.

Over the weekend, somebody at FreeRepublic asked why I thought Obama hadn't released a copy of his original birth certificate to put an end to the controversy. I posited some thoughts, but finished with this:

"All that said, I’m not actually opposed to Obama releasing the long-form. I’d be interested if he did. Not because I think it would hold any surprises; I think it’ll reflect all the same information as on the COLB. It’s because I’m not interested in the document itself, but because I’m interested in what the *reaction* would be. It’s my belief that it wouldn’t ‘end’ anything. But the only way to definitively test that hypothesis would be for the document to be released."

And lo, my wish has been granted.