As Obama stonewalls on uncertified birth certificate, official doubts mount

A senior official in the State of Hawaii's Department of Health, Director of Communications Janice Okubo, confirms that the image published and circulated by the Obama campaign as his "birth certificate" lacks the necessary embossed seal and signature. Backing away from a quote attributed to her that the image on the campaign site was "valid," she told the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times in an article published yesterday: "I don't know that it's possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents."

Barack Obama has claimed in writing to have a valid printed document: In the first chapter of his book Dreams From My Father, describing his origins, he wrote about finding a local Hawaiian newspaper article about his Kenyan father: "I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms, when I was in high school."

So where is that birth certificate? It got lost? The dog ate it? No matter. Barack Obama or an immediate family member can plunk down $10 ($11.50 if he orders online) and have Hawaii mail a certified document to him within a week or two. But more than two weeks have passed since the Obama campaign adopted the suspect, uncertified image of a purported birth document published by a left-wing blog Daily Kos, and nothing certified and nothing on paper has since has been forthcoming. Nor has there been any official comment about the issue from the campaign. They may cling to the hope -- however audacious -- that the one issue that could disqualify their man constitutionally from gaining the presidency will just go away.

Amy Hollyfield of the St. Petersburg Times, and a reporter for the paper's "Politifact" blog, said that she has been seeking the birth certificate "for months." She was frustrated: "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."

Finally, the campaign released the image (resembling the one at the top of this article). Hollyfield 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.

Israel Insider contacted Okubo several days. She could not refer to Obama's specific case, she said, because no one but an authorized family member can do so. But she did confirm that a valid "certification of live birth" would need to have an embossed seal and signature and that it can only be printed and mailed. There is no such thing as an electronic only certification.

In our previous article on this subject we published an example of a certified birth certificate of another Hawaiian citizen, Patricia DeCosta, reproduced below. The stamp and signature are reversed because the embossing is done from the back as per law, as Okubo noted is required by law.

Speaking to National Review Online, Okubo admitted that the Obama image lacked those required features but thought that perhaps the embossing was applied too lightly.

Maybe so, but all the certificates we have seen have the embossed imprint clearly visible, as well as horizontal fold marks.

There's only one way for Obama to show he's a natural born citizen eligible to be President: produce the paper proof.

We got an email yesterday from Bryan Suits who has a radio show on KFI Los Angeles. He writes: "I have just received my State of Hawaii certified birth certificate for my 1964 debut on the planet earth. It looks....nothing like Obama's. We've scanned it at 72dpi, 300dpi. Nuthin. We can't make the emboss disappear. Also, we can't make THE FOLDS disappear!! How did FightTheSmears do it?

I got curious when I compared his (with the 2007 date bleed) to my old beat-up1986 copy. then I went online on June 13 and ordered the thing. It got here yesterday tri-folded in a state of hawaii envelope. I called the State and asked if I could get an unfolded copy. No dice.

Hollyfield brings up other issues that her readers raised, although she does not address them or explain them [bracketed comments from Israel Insider]:

* Where is the embossed seal and the registrar's signature? [Required for validity]

* Comparing it to other Hawaii birth certificates, the color shade is different.

* Isn't the date stamp bleeding through [in reverse] the back of the document [image] "June [6] 2007?" (Odd since it was supposedly released in June 2008.)

* There's no crease from being folded and mailed. [Hawaii requires printing and mailing, according to Okubo. Electronic images are never released, she assured us, nor are they valid.]

Hollyfield, frustrated by failing to access the required original, being refused by the Obama campaign, and finding only secondary documents from his subsequent career, asks what's "reasonable" and then claims that skeptics about Obama's published birth certificate believe that there's a conspiracy afoot:

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.

But Hollyfield is mistaken. There would be no need to invent a conspiracy among officials. All Obama needed to do would be to pass off an uncertified document as being certified. He may have done so unwittingly. Then the rest can follow without any need to conspire with any other official. They just take it on faith that the person is an American citizen.

They don't check about the embossing requirements of the State of the Hawaii. They believe Obama. Why should they doubt him, certainly after he becomes a lawyer and a state senator? The officials believe that the claimed document is authentic, and therefore issue other documents, based on the phony one, buried deep in the documentary chain. Unwitting or not, however, the high stakes for basing one's citizenship on an uncertified birth certificate must be pretty obvious to the campaign now.

Nothing else explains why Obama's campaign refused to release the original paper document, to make this distracting controversy go way. Because Hollyfield is right about one thing:

"If this document is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud."

U.S. citizens who have written to Israel Insider or have posted on the Internet are not satisfied. Ordinary people are compelled to produce certified paper birth certificates to get a passport or a driver's license. Why, people are asking, doesn't Obama needed to show one to run for President?

In a follow-up contact by Hollyfield, Janice Okubo backtracked and qualified, pointing to the main issue that Israel Insider and others have brought into focus [our comments in brackets]:

"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." [But of course, as in the DeCosta sample and others, you can see it clearly.]

Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and it is identical to the Obama one we received. [Well, "identical" cannot be correct. Her name is not Obama, Her certificate number was not blacked out, and her certificate had the required embossed certification. So she can only be saying that the form looked the same, as she said to the National Review Online's Jim Geraghty.]

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." [Except that she received only what was published on the Internet and circulated by email, and no "pieces of the embossed image" do come through that. We have published the highest resolution available and there is no trace of embossed seal or signature. Readers can see for themselves.]

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 you have it. Okubo can't "even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents" because she is not allowed access to Barack Obama's personal records. State law prohibits it.

Only Barack Obama (or another immediate family member) can authorize the release of the paper birth certificate, and submit it to objective analysis. He refuses to do so, even though it would seem to be in his interest to do so, to silence the skeptics, to show that they are wrong and he is right, to settle once and for all that he is a "natural born citizen" entitled by the US Constitution to be President of the United States. Yet there is only silence and inaction from Obama and his campaign on the subject. The palpably uncertified document remains online, with an explanation that refers only to the date of Hawaiian Statehood and an irrelevant passage from the Constitution.

Admitting her failure to obtain a demonstrably authentic birth document for the candidate, Hollyfield falls back at the end of her latest article into her reliance on the "straw man" of a conspiracy theory.

And there's the rub. It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice [sic] 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.

Here Hollyfield is again incorrect. He didn't release a birth certificate, but an image of a purported "certification of live birth" that contains dubious features, lacks a traceable certificate number and -- as the Hawaiian state official Okubo admits -- lacks the stamp and signature required to make it valid. There need be no conspiracy by state or federal officials, just a willingness to believe Obama and accept an image that might look real but might not be.

If Obama is confident that he has a valid paper birth certificate from Hawaii, it is unreasonable for him to be withholding it.

But if he lacks a valid US birth certificate, and therefore cannot prove that he is an American citizen, then he would have good reason to put up a smokescreen and stonewall as long as he can. He would have good reason to try and slide by, as he may have done in the past, by putting up something that would pass as legitimate to the untrained and uninformed, as the one posted by the left-wing Daily Kos blog did, and which much of the media accepted as such, on his say-so.

Because if Obama lacks a valid birth certificate from Hawaii, it would mean that he has been living a lie his whole life: an illegal alien born outside the country who never obtained American citizenship, never became naturalized, and yet has been passing himself off as a citizen to the Illinois Bar, the Illinois Legislature, the US Senate and now, as a candidate for President.

To give Obama the benefit of the doubt: he may not know that he was not born in Hawaii. This may also be part of the family legend his mother communicated to him. As he himself admits in the first chapter of his Dreams, this would not be the only half-truth or outright life his white family told him. The chapter skips over completely anything about the circumstances of his birth or what preceded it: "First the baby arrived, eight pounds, two ounces, with 10 toes and 10 fingers and hungry for food." Subsequent reports have him born in two different hospitals.

Has Obama -- by the "white lie" of claiming to be born in Hawaii (whether the lie came from him or from his mother) and not Kenya or Canada as some have a suggested -- been misrepresenting himself -- wittingly or unwittingly -- to the people of his state and his nation all along?

If so, he would have every reason to put up a web site accusing his critics of conducting a smear campaign to avoid answering valid questions about his identity and background. He would have every reason to accuse political opponents of planning a campaign that raises these questions -- as if to ask whether a candidate for US President is in fact a US citizen is an illegitimate question.

To this day, the question about Obama's national origins remains unanswered, because the proof offered to date is inadequate, even according to the responsible Hawaiian state officials. The question is not whether he's black or white or somewhere in between. The question is not whether he's a Muslim or Christian, a Democrat or a Communist. The question is whether he can document that he was born in Hawaii and thus meet the requirements of the Constitution.

Yes, the question about whether the candidate is a natural born American citizen is legitimate. But is Obama?

If Obama lacks a certified Hawaiian birth certificate, he's not a natural born American. If he's not a natural born American, he can't be president. That's the law of the land.

If Obama is a legitimate candidate, a natural born citizen of the United States, he must prove it. If he is not, he must admit the truth, and accept the consequences. Now, not later.

This is a matter of US national security. Because there are people in this world who know the truth and can prove it. They would be able to hold that knowledge and proof over his head to make him do their bidding, or else expose him as a fraud, liar and, yes, an illegal alien. That is not a risk that it is reasonable for the American people to take.

Beyond the vulnerability to blackmail, there is a more fundamental question that must be asked if Obama is not forthcoming in producing the requisite documentation of his citizenship: does the American people really want to elect a man who would conceal his past and identity? Does it want to elect a man who would withhold the full truth and stonewall legitimate questions in his pursuit of the presidency, all the while claiming to be a victim and accusing others of fraud?

There's only one way for Obama to show he's a natural born citizen eligible to be President: produce the paper proof.

Whether from popular pressure or a legal challenge to his credentials, it is essential that Obama be forced to release for objective analysis the birth certificate he claimed in own book to possess.

Each American, at watershed moments in his or her life -- to get a driver's license, a marriage certificate, a passport -- must produce a paper birth certificate for official inspection and analysis. Now it's Obama's turn.

Although registering to vote these days does not require a birth certif
(or any other evidence of citizenship) ...
add to the list of activities that DO REQUIRE producing
an embossed original or certified copy:

qualifying to receive Medicare and/or SS;

playing in any organized youth sports league (hereabouts).

Confirming that a major party’s candidate for POTUS meets the Constitutional requirements for that office is “game playing” and “has no place in presidential politics”?

You’re right. Let’s just chuck that whole archaic concept of a Constitution out the window and wing it from here forward. That should be a lot of fun. Who needs stinkin’ rules?

Notice that the print border hatchwork is totally different in patern and density.
As well, the typeset is much more bold on the known legitimate copy as opposed to Obie’s very questionable facsimile.
The folds are so distinct as is the official stamp and certification,ertificare totally missing on Obie’s alleged Birth Certificate.
Obie, it’s only $10.00, buy yourself an actual certified copy of your Birth Certificate! Obie, I DARE YOU! Are You are real U.S. Citizen or again have We caught You in a major Fraudulent Lie?? Easy to Answer, Obie, IF you are telling the Truth! Hard to answer, Obie, if You are lieing as it seems usual!!!!!!!!

When we looked at that image you guys sent us, our registrar, he thought he could see pieces of the embossed image through it.

That's a crazy statement to make.

First: It is clear to the lady that many have very carefully looked the document over. Why? Because she has been getting so many emails and contacts about it.

I don't know the lady's regular speech pattern, but I do know officials speaking officially on hot issues do NOT normally come across so informally.

But, imo there may be some verbal cues here in this statement.

Us versus youse all. She uses "we", "us", "our registrar" speaking for her official office, and to her respondent: "you guys". Sounds like a competition. But it isn't. Dear Janice Okubo, we are all on the same side! This is just business, not your team versus our team. You area civil servant, remember? You represent us, you act as our agent in fulfilling the duties of your offfice.
She speaks for her office in the plural. Yet she pushes off the unbelievable discovery of an official seal on the image to a singular "he" -- "he thought he could". Not "we", not even "I though I could".
The "he" is unnamed. He is identified as "he, our registrar"

My read -- she's obfuscating. She's scared. Something is really awry with these records.

Yes, but this is a recent reproduction ostensibly provided by the HI Gov’t. The note in the lower left corner says “OHSM 1.1 (Rev. 11/01) LASER” which would suggest this copy is no older than seven years. I think the embossed seal would last at least that long.

It's hard for me to say but knowing that a steam iron can smooth out wrinkles and creases in paper, It's within the realm of possibility that had the paper been exposed to high humidity such as from a room dehumidifier or humid summer Chicago days with the windows open and then pressed flat under a stack of papers or in a file, the seal and creases may have ironed themselves out. I'm not saying that's likely, just possible and therefore, we still need to be careful

The document published on the Daily Kos is not a copy of Obama's birth certificate. It doesn't claim to be. Instead, it's a "certificate of live birth," which is a separate, secondary document that can be issued by the state at any time, even years or decades, after the birth.

All that a certificate of live birth does is attest that the infant was born, implying that somewhere in the state archives there's another document -- namely, the original birth certificate -- that contains all of the pertinent information (including, among other things, the marital status of the parents, and possibly their religion(s); the name and signature of the physician who attended the birth; the name and signature of at least one witness (usually an attending nurse); the name and address of the hospital where the birth occurred; a statement as to whether the infant's father was, at the time of the birth, an actively serving member of the U.S. Armed Forces; and, not least of all, a rubber-stamped imprint of the infant's right foot).

So, one more time: A certificate of live birth is NOT the same as a birth certificate, and the fact that the certificate of live birth was issued in 2007 on a laser-printer form tells us absolutely nothing other than that the real birth certificate, which apparently no one has seen, is (perhaps) still out there.

It's within the realm of possibility that had the paper been exposed to high humidity such as from a room dehumidifier or humid summer Chicago days with the windows open and then pressed flat under a stack of papers or in a file, the seal and creases may have ironed themselves out.

I have LOTS of papers and have lived in Chicago since '94. This is not possible.

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