Inconsistencies abound in FactCheck report on Obama "birth certificate"

Israeli Insider ^ | 8/24/08 | Reuven Koret

[pissant]

The Annenberg Political Factcheck website has published photographs and an analysis of what it says is the "original birth certificate" of Barack Hussein Obama II. While the physical document depicted in the photos resemble the document image previously scanned and published by the Daily Kos website and Obama's own "Fight the Smears" site in June, FactCheck's case for authenticity and its claims to objectivity are undermined by a litany of process flaws, conflicts of interest and factual inconsistencies that raise doubts about its motives and methods of those of the Obama campaign.

The Factcheck.org report, titled "Born in the USA," accompanied by an image of the Bruce Springsteen album cover, starts:

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.

FactCheck claims that its staffers have "seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate" begs the question and obscures the truth. In fact, the article later goes on to make clear that this is in fact not "the original birth certificate" but "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 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."

This would seem to suggest that Factcheck went through the process of requesting the birth certificate (after all, why else reproduce and link the request form?), but no -- it turns out that they had a special invitation to visit the birth certificate at its residence, as if they were visiting some long lost relatives or a reclusive celebrity:

"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."

For an organization that claims to be fastidious with the facts, the sentence is vague and overly cute. Who made the invitation to "spend some time with the certificate"? How exactly did it happen that they "got a chance"? Did FactCheck approach the Obama Campaign or did the Obama Campaign approach FactCheck? And what are the forensic analysis credentials of the FactCheck staff that allows them to conclude definitively that the birth certificate is real and original?

And when is "recently"? The controversy over the birth certificate has been raging for ten weeks. Was it coincidental that it would emerge right after Obama returned from his "vacation" in Hawaii? The claim of "recently" is thrown into further doubt by the revelation that embedded date information in the photographs indicates that the photos were taken nearly a half year ago.

Factcheck.org posted 9 photographs of what it claimed were different aspects of Obama's "Certificate of Live Birth", all in less than optimal and idiosyncratic lighting conditions. All of them were taken over a less than seven minute period on March 12, 2008 from 10:40:18 to 10:47:02 at night.

No wonder FactCheck sufficed left it a vague "spend some time" when the duration of the entire photography session took 6 minutes and 44 seconds. Talk about: "Wham, bam, thank you, Obama!" Does that sound like a serious and thorough examination to

FactCheck will need to explain these hard chronological facts, which can be verified from the published photos by anyone with an EXIF reading tool, publically available on the net and as part of graphics software.

If the embedded graphical information is correct, it means that FactCheck is lying about doing the photo session "recently" and may be lying about much more, since it would be implausible that "FactCheck" was even checking facts about the birth certificate in March 2008.

Factcheck may try to argue that the photographer "forgot" to set the correct time. But that would further illuminate the shoddy level of professionalism in disregarding the need for exact documentation of the date, a carelessness echoed in the introductory remarks of its article ("recently" is not a fact, especially when it is not clearly associated with the location of the photo shoot ? where the documents "reside" is hardly the same thing). If so, FactCheck would also need to show some other published photos published with the same camera that show an identical offset between the camera's time and the real time.

Exactly for such reasons -- the lack of professionalism, exactitude and transparency concerning the provenance of this paper and the circumstances of the photographic session -- the reasonable demand from the skeptics -- who were initially made suspicious by the fact that the purported certificate image was published first (initially in relatively low resolution and only later in high resolution) in the far-left partisan Daily Kos blog -- has always been that the paper certificate must be subjected to the scrutiny of objective media or document forensics specialists, and mainstream journalists who can ask the hard question not just about this document image or that document image but examine it for themselves and query Obama himself about the many lingering mysteries and evasions in this whole affair.

It is striking, too, that Newsweek reprints the FactCheck report under the organizational byline without the minimal scrutiny that one would expect from a serious news magazine. In effect it is an advertorial serving the interests of the Obama campaign, not an objective piece of journalist.

FactCheck itself, as a project primarily funded by the Annenberg Foundation, hardly fits the bill of being a disinterested party, especially given Obama's four year stint as founding chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, currently being investigated due to its massive withholding of papers which document the catestrophic failure of the project, including public funds wasted under Obama's leadership, and his relations in that project with former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

Most curious, too, is the apparent lack of curiosity of FactCheck in pursuing the original "long-form" birth certificate that was supposedly used as the basis for the short form. After all, Barack Obama refers explicitly to possessing this document in "Dreams from My Father". Since FactCheck apparently has sufficiently close relations with the Obama teams to merit the exclusive privilege of being invited to "spend some time" (or at least 6 minutes and 44 seconds) with the reclusive short-form, one might think that if they were really interested in checking facts or examining original records they would doggedly pursue the paper source document -- the real thing from 47 years ago, not something cleaned and extracted from a database and thus subject to all kinds of potential revision and redaction.

Rather than asking the hard questions of Obama himself, or even the Obama campaign, or even requesting additional documents from the State of Hawaii in the public interest (they said they "tried" to ask about the long form but failed to get an answer), FactCheck falls back on the rather lame claim that the short form has "enough information to be acceptable to the State Department" and goes so far as to include a footnote linking to the State Department's Passport application requirements.

But isn't that bar set a bit too low for the man who wants to be President, especially as you can be a citizen without being natural born, especially when there are multiple reports coming from Kenya -- including several from Obama's own relatives -- that he was actually born in Kenya and came to Hawaii only days after birth, apparently at his mother's insistence that he would be recorded as being born in the USA? Apparently not too low for FactCheck. From their report it would appear that they are not interested or, perhaps more correctly, conflicted in their interests.

The photographs themselves of course superficially resemble what a real short-form certificate should look like, although it is impossible to ascertain from a series of jpg images. Remarkably, for an organization which purports to be dedicated to checking facts, no high resolution of the document's two sides was made so that professionals could compare that scan with the scan previously published in the Daily Kos. The Obama headquarters has no scanner? FactCheck has no scanner? Only a Canon Powershot 570 with an unset date? Or perhaps they were granted a mere six minutes and 44 seconds and had no time for a scan.

Comparing the high resolution Daily Kos scan (as opposed to the scan originally published) with the FactCheck photos, there are obvious and dramatic differences. The scan shows only the thinnest of fold marks at the top and none below, no seal and no signature block. Oddly, only the June 6, 2007 date stamp is visible. Only after extreme manipulations of the Daily Kos image did some graphic specialists managed to squeeze out the blurred and color enhance image of something that just might be a seal or a signature block. But even then, not in the correct size or expected location.

Those stark differences clearly validate the skepticism with which the scan was regarded by Israel Insider and others from the start. Why, then, did it take the campaign ten weeks to produce photos that show the missing seal, signature block and deep fold marks, so deep that they disrupt some letters and print of the seal? What changed between June 12 and August 21?

Then there is the issue of the redacted file number which for the last ten plus weeks has been blacked out . Here's the explanation that comes from the Obama campaign, according to FactCheck:

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."

That's odd. The "rush" to release the document? Who exactly was rushing them? The bloggers over at Daily Kos? Why was the Obama campaign in such a "rush" if there was no problem and no real pressure to produce. They couldn't wait another few hours or a day to talk to the Hawaii Health Department before rushing to print at the Daily Kos? And then, after the redacted document was up, they couldn't have replaced it with an unredacted image?

Only last week, the Honolulu Advertiser quoted Janice Okubo, Director of Communications in Hawaii's Department as Health, as saying that with the file number one could hack into the system. "Potentially, if you have that number, you could break into the system." Okubo seems on intent on defending the Obama campaign even if she admits that the image they presented as authentic lacked visible stamps and seals. "They responded and apparently it isn't good enough that he posted his birth certificate," Okubo said. "They say they want it because they claim he is not a citizen of the United States. It's pretty ridiculous."

So which is it? Is the file number irrelevant, as the campaign now claims, or is it a data that could be used to hack into the system, as Hawaii claims. If it is irrelevant, why is Janice Okubo providing excuses for the Obama campaign? If it is dangerous for data security, why is the Obama campaign ignoring that danger? And why does Okubo say it's "ridiculous" to be asking questions about the provenance of a vital record of a presidential candidate when the proffered proof clearly lacked the requisite stamps and signatures. Or did Obama's people and Okubo have a heart to heart between body surfing sessions at Waikiki?

Despite the points scored by the Obama campaign in gaining high level media coverage for a favorable puff piece, the FactCheck photospread -- revealing so much that the scan did not --unwittingly serves to validate the legitimacy of the probing questions and analyses that have been asked over the past two and a half months by Israel Insider and various bloggers, document examiners, and average citizens.

While the quality and consistency of the analyses of these amateur sleuths have been irregular, and have taken wrong turns on several occasions, shouldn't the burden of proof for documenting one's citizenship and producing the original vital records fall on the candidate and the legal authorities empowered for this purpose, not ordinary citizens disturbed by the lack of transparency of a presidential candidate and his arrogant unwillingness to produce documents expected of regular Americans?

The FactCheck report may have Obamatons humming "Born in the USA", but anyone serious about getting to the truth of Obama's constitutional qualifications will be disappointed by their casual and smug report. And they will expect more from a candidate who, like the protagonist in the opening lines of the Springsteen song, seems to "spend half [his] life just covering up."

The evidentiary and analytical shoddiness of the FactCheck report, both in terms of the dubious dating of the photos, the inexactitude in the circumstances of the shoot, apparent inconsistencies between the photos and the scan, and the failure to pursue the more significant, truly original, long form birth certificate, all point to the inadequacy of the proof presented to date to validate Obama's claim to being a "natural born" US citizen.

That question, it now seems, will need to be answered in federal court.

[HighlyOpinionated]

These people are pure amateurs at this. They make too many errors to be believable by any but the most gullible. I think there are plenty of Democrats blushing various shades of red over this.

WHEN Barry Dunham was adopted by Lolo Soetoro in Indonesia in 1965-66, his US Birth Certificate was SEALED. It's not available to anyone, including the adult child. If Barrack Sr did not "adopt" Barry Soetoro and change his name and Citizenship status, or if the Dunhams did not "adopt" Barry Soetoro and change his Citizenship status and perhaps allow him to change his name to 'Obama,' then the Indonesian Adoption is Legal and Valid. If Sr or the Dunhams did adopt Barry Soetoro, then where ever he was adopted would have a valid certified Birth Certificate with the ADOPTED information on all the necessary lines.

So if we assume that Barack Sr and the Dunhams DID NOT adopt him, Barry Soetoro would still be his legal name and his legal citizenship is Indonesian. If the Dunhams did adopt him, investigators are assuming his last name was changed to Obama. Why not request the birth certificate for Barry Dunham or Barry Soetoro in Honolulu? Why not request the "name change documentation" for Barry Soetoro to Barack H. Obama, Jr (or II)?

My first born grandson was adopted out and his original birth certificate on file at the State Vital Statistics only states his adopted name and his adopted parents' names and their home town as his place of birth. Except for the fact that I applied for and received his original birth certificate before the adoption took place, there is NO documentation, other than adoption papers, that he was born to my daughter. So, I know what I'm talking about.

Barry Soetoro needs to be challenged and perhaps someone in Indonesia can obtain the birth certificate from there. If so, then THAT IS THE VALID birth certificate as it would be sealed if he was adopted as Barry Soetoro by his birth father or his grandparents.

The smugness will soon be replaced with the truth.

[Kevmo]

Thanks for the ping.

So, Obama follows the typical democrat approach by showing the document to “In-The-Tank media pals”, and not the general public. This is about what we all expected from his trip to Hawaii.

The whole issue is going to rest on technical details, and Team Obama knows it. So they’ve already dispatched their ogres and Techdude no longer wants to pursue this due to the threats. Polarik is next.

I’ll be posting this article up onto the Intrade forum — 4200 reads so far, more than all the others on the first page combined.

[bvw]

With your knack for economics maybe you can answer an economic question for me?

When I hire a man for a job that involves my money and my business -- and it gives him free access to nearly all of my ledgers, finances and accounts, who strict should I be in vetting him for the job?

In this case I have an applicant who claims he presented a legitimate copy of his MBA degree, and his CPA certificate, but he only allowed his employment agent to see them, and only gave me a medium resolution jpeg file by email. I tried calling the college and the CPA accrediting agency to validate the certs but they both say that they can only reply to the certificate holder himself. And he says that for personal reasons he cannot do so, and that because his agent says all is kosher and has provided an amige file that sort of looks okay -- that's good enough.

What do you recommend?

[JessieHelmsJr]

Wheres Dan Rather when you need him? LOL

[bvw]

“who strict” => “how strict”

[bvw]

I’m thinking that a court order can break that seal of adoption secrecy, would you know if that is so?

[EagleUSA]

I don’t think the issue is his citizenship.

I think the issue that could get him is forging a Government document and then lying to the nation with it.
::::::::::
The issue is one of Constituional law, and upholding it. If Obama is deliberately breaking THE LAW in order to run for President, it must be exposed and he must be removed from the race. This issue, is more important than any other single issue in the campaign. He as a presidential candidate, as ANY candidate should be, be held ACCOUNTABLE and must PROVE his eligibility to be President UNDER THE LAW.

After that, he should be prosecuted for attempted fraud, to the full extent of the law -— such that other criminals start to have some respect for the Constitution and our system of laws, that so many of them want to tear down....e.g. Obama, for one.

[seekthetruth]

Interesting post.

My understanding is that Obama and the DNC have not yet been served from Berg’s TRO lawsuit. I’m sure getting the papers served will be difficult to do and most likely not done until after the convention, if at all. The MSM will make sure that Obama and the DNC are protected from any bad news.

[Scutter]

I’m well aware of your posts, and of your penchant for starting flame wars. I am not going to lower myself to that level.

In fact, what I am going to do, and I would encourage you to do the same, is to go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather.

[pissant]

This article reads like the ravings of a fanatic

Yes, I always start flame wars.

[ncfool]

Now that Phil Berg has sued in Federal Court the records in Hawaii have to be produced by Obama or the court will order Hawaii’s Sec of state to release for discovery.

If there are adaption records I would assume they can be discovered too. So we will get to see what is hanging out there. It might take time.

The Fact Check people should also ask for signed releases from Obama and have a person go to Hawaii and personally pick up the same documents for release. If there is nothing to hide then Obama should immediately deal with this issue. His lack of transparancy indicates there is something going on.

On another note! This is a funny clip from you tube:

Everybody is screaming that the GOP is doig this when its William Jefferson Clinton who was in Africa himself on his missions who made the following statement on August 3, 2008. This is a clip from ABC news who did a 30 min piece on Clinton in Africa.

BILL CLINTON SAID WHILE TRAVELING IN AFRICA August 2008 - ABC News: (you tube link)

Bill Clinton: Barack Obama Is Qualified Constitutionally

“The Constitution sets qualifications for the president, and then the people decide who they think would be the better president”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q1RIJJcZwk

[LiveFreeOrDie2001]

So, we’re not done with Hillary yet, are we...?!?

[pissant]

I think she’s done. This will not be resolved this week. But if Obama is booted next month, will it be Hill or Plugs that gets to run??

[ridesthemiles]

We will get our answers in federal court. Yes, from the law suit that was filed by a ‘truther’ and Clinton employee. Philip J Berg, the lawyer who filed the suit against Obama, ...”

I personally don’t care who Berg supports.
I don’t care if the lawsuit was filed by a little green man who dropped to earth in the middle of Area 51.
I want the truth about Nobama to come to light.
I think he was born in Kenya.
There is too much controversy swirling around this topic for just GOP and non-Nobama supporters to be interested.
I would think that any citizen of the USA would not want their constitution hi-jacked by a person who knew from the git-go that he was not then and is not now qualified to be President of the USA.
There are too many persons who are legal natural born citizens of the USA that can run for President for anyone to waste their time, money, and adoration for a fraud.

Nobama also stated on his Illinois bar application that he was NEVER known by any other name.
That lie is all too wasy for even the dumbest person in the USA to understand. Nobama knew what name was used when he was a student in Indonesia in school.
This conflict about the information Nobama tries to put out and then cover up has to come out into the light, and long before we vote in November.
Kudos to Berg for his courage.

[pissant]

Interesting, to say the least.

[Plinko]

Having lurked around here I can say for certain that this will be my first and last post, this site has a looooong history of deleting and banning anyone who disagrees in even the slightest way. Ironic for "FREE republic" no?

In any event:

Barack Obama has been alive for 47 years, he went to school in America from fifth grade until he graduated High School. After that he went to a California college for two years, then finished at Columbia University when he went on to work at two very big companies.

In 1988 he went to Harvard Law School and obtained a position as editor of the most prestigious journal of legal scholarship in the world. The next year he was elected president of the journal.

At the time it was a HUGE deal that many, MANY people had a problem with because he was the first black man to obtain this position.

Barack Obama graduated in 1991. At that point in his life he could be called "Dr. Obama" but never does. He goes on to work at one of the oldest law firms in the world.

I'll stop there, I hate to put so much effort into what will be deleted but I just want to say this: If ANY of that was a surprise, if ANY of you had to look ANY of that up, if you were just fact checking or looking for holes in my story or looking to see if I spelled something right: you are VERY much behind the curve on a lot of people who have spent a lot more time, energy, and money looking into it.

There are people who's JOB it is to look into these things. People who did FAR more than sit at their computer, read one insanely biased and nonsense story, and came to conclusions based on...well the thoughts in their head frankly.

Sherlock Holmes at no point solved a case by sitting in his lounger smoking opium. He got up, looked at things. He investigated. Then he smoked opium.

People have been looking into his past, trying to dig up dirt, and generally trying to bring him down INCLUDING one of the most powerful political organizations in the world and no one has found anything. But. BUT one lone blogger spends 10 seconds looking at some pictures he found in the internet and suddenly blows the whole thing wide open? We're one sassy talking cat away from a blockbuster movie starring Bruce Willis.

It just makes me sad that the political discourse in America has gotten so sad that we now sit around agreeing with each other about how someone is involved in a 47 year old plot to...I have no idea honestly. Instead of looking at each candidate and examining the holes in their plans you're saying "Well one guy MUST be worse cause...uhhh...he's on the wrong side?"

Instead of saying WHY one guy is the best guy you are trying to prove that the other guy doesn't have the RIGHT to run against him. Why?

Have you ever run into a fanboy? Someone who loved Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony so much they defended every action no matter what and claimed that their Wii/360/PS3 was the best full stop and everything made by the OTHER company was terrible simply by being? Aren't they annoying?

Yes. Yes they are.

Use common sense people. I have my reasons why I'm not voting for Obama but I'd LOVE to see someone else have something other than "He's black popular inexperienced Democrat

[bvw]

Registered today to post that tripe? A cowardly and slandering hit-and-run post? Good riddance. Obama needs better defenders than the likes of you.

[RaceBannon]

great link, missed it

[ncfool]

Plinko!

Opinions are like A-sholes everybody has one! Welcome to the rightside of the world. Bambi has been hiding his whole life. Tell me what he has done other then running!

American’s was a President we all can be proud of and one who is proud of America. That person is John McCain

[ncfool]

Plinko!

It was not the republican’s who found out this information. It was William Jefferson Clinton who was in Africa himself on his missions who made the following statement on August 3, 2008. This is a clip from ABC news who did a 30 min piece on Clinton in Africa.

BILL CLINTON SAID WHILE TRAVELING IN AFRICA August 2008 - ABC News: (you tube link)

Bill Clinton: Barack Obama Is Qualified Constitutionally

“The Constitution sets qualifications for the president, and then the people decide who they think would be the better president”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q1RIJJcZwk