Posted on 06/27/2008 3:00:00 PM PDT by pissant
SUMMARY: Since we published Obama's birth certificate, questions about its authenticity have been frequent and fierce. After reviewing the evidence, we're confident in our rulings.
It started as a whisper, a trickle of nagging doubt.
“As a concerned citizen, I’m wondering if there isn’t something fishy going on with the Obama certificate.”
“I have serious doubts about the purported 'birth certificate’ you were sent.”
“Something doesn’t smell right.”
Soon, e-mails and blog posts were flying. As the pace quickened, the tone sharpened.
“You should be apologizing ... for your misinformation regarding BO bogus birth certificate, that you claimed was genuine!”
At full throttle, the accusations are explosive and unrelenting, the writers emboldened by the anonymity and reach of the Internet.
And you can’t help but ask: How do you prove something to people who come to the facts believing, out of fear or hatred or maybe just partisanship, that they’re being tricked?
• • •
Sen. Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a document PolitiFact.com had sought for months. Countless chain e-mails, seeking to paint him as a secret Muslim, speculated that his full name included Muhammed (or Mohammed). Some said he is not an American citizen.
Birth Certificate
As a fact-checking news Web site, we went to extensive lengths to sort out the truth. We got a copy of his 1992 marriage certificate from the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics. His driver’s license record from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office. His registration and disciplinary record with the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Not to mention all of his property records.
Not one of these documents shows a Muhammed (or Mohammed) in Obama's name. They all read "Barack H. Obama" or "Barack Hussein Obama."
The ultimate document we sought was Obama’s birth certificate. Unlike the other documents, Hawaii birth certificates aren’t public record. Only family members can request copies, so when the campaign declined to give us one, we were stalled.
On June 13, 2008, Obama’s campaign finally released a copy, while launching a fact-check Web site of its own, Fightthesmears.com. The site is a direct response to allegations about Obama that won’t go away: He’s Muslim. He took the oath of office on a Koran. He refuses to say the pledge of allegiance. PolitiFact has researched all of these accusations and none of them are true.
When the birth certificate arrived from the Obama campaign it confirmed his name as the other documents already showed it. Still, we took an extra step: We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real.
“It’s a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,” spokesman Janice Okubo told us.
Then the firestorm started.
• Where is the embossed seal and the registrar’s signature?
• Comparing it to other Hawaii birth certificates, the color shade is different.
• Isn’t the date stamp bleeding through the back of the document “June 2007?” (Odd since it was supposedly released in June 2008.)
• There’s no crease from being folded and mailed.
• It’s clearly Photoshopped and a wholesale fraud.
• • •
At PolitiFact.com, we’re all about original sources. We don’t take anyone at their word or take the reporting of other media organizations as proof. We go to the heart of the story, the source of the truth — original, corroborating documents.
When the official documents were questioned, we went looking for more answers. We circled back to the Department of Health, had a newsroom colleague bring in her own Hawaii birth certificate to see if it looks the same (it’s identical). But every answer triggered more questions.
And soon enough, after going to every length possible to confirm the birth certificate’s authenticity, you start asking, what is reasonable here?
Because if this document is forged, then they all are.
If this document is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud. They have done it with conspiring officials at the Hawaii Department of Health, the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Illinois Secretary of State’s office, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois and many other government agencies.
Sounds like a Vince Flynn novel.
• • •
Peter Goelz knows a little something about conspiracy theorists.
He was managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board in 1996 when TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, killing 230 people. While the NTSB’s investigation found no evidence of sabotage or terrorism, the Internet was stocked with insistent accusations.
“We were right at the beginning of this Internet lunacy,” Goelz said in an interview with PolitiFact. “And there were a variety of crackpot Web sites and Web commentators that generated all sorts of rumors. The principle one was that TWA in fact was shot down by an errant Navy missile in ... a live-fire exercise off the Hamptons.”
Nine miles off Long Island, in the middle of summer. And then a full-scale coverup by the Navy and all the sailors involved.
“I am sure that we spent another $10-million, perhaps $20-million, out of a $50-million investigation, to just knock down and put to bed these kinds of rumors, these insidious rumors,” Goelz said. “We felt like we had to answer every question because it was such a public and dreadful and confounding event.”
Goelz, who is now a communications consultant in Washington, D.C., says the Internet has given a platform to anyone to say anything. And a way to find others who want to hear it.
“Online, they can be almost anything,” he said. “They can be the crusading investigators that they always wanted to be.”
• • •
The Hawaii Department of Health receives about a dozen e-mail inquiries a day about Obama’s birth certificate, spokesman Okubo said.
“I guess the big issue that’s being raised is the lack of an embossed seal and a signature,” Okubo said, pointing out that in Hawaii, both those things are on the back of the document. “Because they scanned the front … you wouldn’t see those things.”
Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and it is identical to the Obama one we received.
And about the copy we e-mailed her for verification? “When we looked at that image you guys sent us, our registrar, he thought he could see pieces of the embossed image through it.”
Still, she acknowledges: “I don’t know that it’s possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents.”
• • •
And there’s the rub. It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible.
But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over.
There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact’s conclusion that the candidate’s name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn’t authentic.
And that’s true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.
Amy, I will agree with you about one thing. You said,
If this document is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud.
Though there is no "if" about it....
Can I get a translation of that?
Ping
That would be racist. What r u a bigot?
Sounds like a Vince Flynn novel.
No, sounds like a Dan Rather Special Report for cBS.
No, just not versed in ebonics.
Exactly.
Israel Insider update. More conversations with Okubo.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2037464/posts
Yo check yourself...
To make a long story short:
“Hillary Clinton endorses Obama” theater
http://last-antichrist.blogspot.com/2007/05/hillary-clinton-2008-for-dummies-two.html
the st petersburg times is useful for pet hygeine.
What a garbage post you’ve made. I like to think this site is above that sort of thing.
If this document isn’t a fake why is the document number blacked out? If this document isn’t a fake why are the borders clearly faked? If this document isn’t a fake why is there no official seal on it? If this document isn’t a fake why doesn’t Obama release his official paper document to the media and put this to rest? Just a few questions I want to ask Obama in person.
Wishful thinking.
Yeah it was bad.
I wonder if Aimless is a D or an R??
Ha! Thanks!
It would be a simple matter for the Obama campaign to obtain and supply a real, verifiable birth certificate and not an electronic “copy” on the Internet that cannot truly be verified.
The fact that they continue to fail to do so suggests either (1) there really are problems with the real certificate, or (2) there are no problems but the Obamanators are enjoying the spectacle of critics spinning their wheels trying to determine what is really going on here.
How about an actual signed Birth Cirtificate from they day he was born? How about a Selective Service Registration?
I wonder how many hours this rag researched the rumor of GW & cocaine.
My mother was born in Dublin, Ireland. I guess that’s why the race designation for mother on my birth certificate from 1960 is “Irish”. Just like BO’s “African” race designation for his father in 1961. Sheesh...
Simple, she can ask Obama for the original.
While she’s at it, also search for the documents with Barry Soetoro, what documents they had to support that name and the name change documents.
*And that’s true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.*
The same could be said for 9/11 troofers, yet you don’t read any denial of their idiotic claims in newspapers.
Wonder why?
“I guess the big issue that’s being raised is the lack of an embossed seal and a signature,” Okubo said, pointing out that in Hawaii, both those things are on the back of the document. “Because they scanned the front … you wouldn’t see those things.”
Except on the Decosta document...
I was not aware of this fact.
That alone would ensure his defeat in November.
I don’t know whether the document is a fake or not ... but this article certainly does not resolve the issue.
Best I can follow, her argument boils down to, “This can’t be fake, because those who claim it is fake refuse to be persuaded it’s not fake, and they’re just Internet yahoos anyway, and surely no one could believe that it could be fake because think what that would mean.”
Using that method of determining the legitimacy of documents, Dan Rather would still be on the throne at CBS news and John Kerry would be President.
Oh, and somebody should tell Libya’s genius he isn’t a muslim too... unless he’s gone right-wing conspiracists as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSemkPChvHo
ANd the doc that a freeper supplied of her son’s birth
Okay, maybe Hawaii does issue phony-looking birth certificates to people requesting them. But the fact that no one can access those records except under very limited circumstances means that Obama and his campaign could very easily have altered the document and no one would be in a position to prove that it had been altered, not having access to the original. And the fact that it has a blacked-out registration number, and is available only in a low-res version (among other things) lends an air of the deepest suspicion to the whole business.
But it would be very easy for Obama to set all suspicion at rest for all time. Just give an independent third party the power to obtain their own copy directly from the appropriate officials.
"It LOOKS like a valid Hawaii state birth certificate" and "This SPECIFIC document AND the INFORMATION ON IT is a certified valid Hawaii state birth certificate" ARE TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS.
I’d never heard that rumor unitl the Fightthesmears idiots brought it up. That was one of their strawman debunkings. No one who is serious ever suggested that.
As a fact-checking news Web site, we went to extensive lengths to sort out the truth. We got a copy of his 1992 marriage certificate from the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics. His driver’s license record from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office. His registration and disciplinary record with the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Not to mention all of his property records.Not one of these documents shows a Muhammed (or Mohammed) in Obama's name. They all read "Barack H. Obama" or "Barack Hussein Obama."
The questions on peoples mind are WHERE was he born (two places in Hawaii have been mentioned), were the parents married, what was his name on his birth certificate (Barry? his mom's last name, etc). It is just as easy for the Democrats to discredit anyone doing an investigation by adding some goofy rumors of their own "his real name is Mohammed".
The ultimate document we sought was Obama’s birth certificate. Unlike the other documents, Hawaii birth certificates aren’t public record. Only family members can request copies, so when the campaign declined to give us one, we were stalled.On June 13, 2008, Obama’s campaign finally released a copy, while launching a fact-check Web site of its own, Fightthesmears.com. The site is a direct response to allegations about Obama that won’t go away: He’s Muslim. He took the oath of office on a Koran. He refuses to say the pledge of allegiance. PolitiFact has researched all of these accusations and none of them are true.
They did NOT release a copy. They released a different document. And why sit on it? The Koran thing is another cover rumor. It is some people confussing him with Elison (or being deliberately led to confuse the two).
But discredit everything with some straw man arguments. Standard Operating Procedure for Yellow Journalists.
Exacly. No credibility from the MSM re documents put forth either to smear a Republican president/candidate or to make a 'Rat presidential candidate look clean.
Not to pile on here, but what about a copy of his Selective Service registration?
He did NOT take his oath of office on the koran. That was some other person whose name escapes me but am sure someone here will remember who that was.
These rumors are terrible. Just go to truth or fiction to see how many are out there and how many have been debunked as pure gossip.
Why do others say “Date Accepted by Registrar” and Obama’s says “Date Filed by Registrar”. THAT IS THE $64,000 question that Mrs O needs to be asked!!!
And Kerry never DID release his documents to the public. He shared them with a friendly soul at the Boston Glob.
But the media wants us all to simmer down now. Candidates can proclaim “Bush KNEW” but this is considered a crackpot theory.
I went to Poynter (St. Pete college for journalists & the machine behind St. Pete Times & CQ) and their fawning over their own objectivity is comical. Especially when they have Wash Post folks as Trustees.
Objective? Riiiiiiiiiight LOL!
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=62&aid=56534
I guess rhetorical, but how did he get to this point in his campaign if there wasn’t absolute authenticity? I mean, it seems controversy swirls around it, and yet it’s just shooshed aside.
Hasn’t Obama admitted to past cocaine use? I guess we are over that as an issue of “tell all” books and t-shirts now.
Socialists must take some kind of hypocrite oath.
And why is it that the blank template of a Hawaii birth certification that’s circulated widely shows the exact same time of day as Obama’s supposedly legit one. There are 1440 minutes in a day and he just happened to be born on that exact one??? Nothing’s been cleared up.
Yes, but only when the candidate in question is not a Democrat...
All she confirmed was that the form looked real.
Interesting but inconclusive.
I still want to know if African has been commonly (or even uncommonly)used as a term to describe someone’s race on a birth certificate.
Amy Hollyfield brings in Peter Goelz as a source??? To prove we are all lunatics???
Now I know we are on the right track. BO’s birth certificate is a fraud.
Shame on us! ;-)
Emboldened by anonymity. Why, there oughta be a law! If only we'd leave the 'real' reporting to the 'real' reporters. Hahaha.
1) The blacking out of the certificate number invalidates the certificate for any legal purpose, correct? Follow-up: if the certificate is not a valid document, does that free you from your obligation that your "office cannot verify the information on a form without the permission of the certificate holder?"
2) Without divulging any private information about specific people, please explain the difference between Hawaii's use of the phrases "Date Filed" and "Date Accepted" on its certifications of birth.
3) If the document is not genuine in the first place, does the state of Hawaii plan to protect and defend the authenticity of its legal documents by exposing this as a fraud?
I can understand not wanting to release vital statistics about a person on a legitimate document, but it must be in Hawaii's own interest to expose a forgery being passed around as an authentic Hawaiian document. Hawaii should owe no obligation to a person named on a forged document. It is Hawaii's responsibility as a government to expose a fraud done in their name and protect the legitimacy of its legal documents for its own citizens' sake.
It's time for Hawaii to make am authoritative statement about the authenticity and legal validity of this document.
-PJ
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