"She referred to Mitt Romney's father, George Romney, who was born in Mexico and ran for president in 1968; Barry Goldwater, who was born in Arizona before it became a state; Lowell Weicker, the former Connecticut governor, congressman and senator who was born in Paris; and McCain, born in the canal zone...."
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The Sleuth - Mary Ann Akers... Behind the Scenes in Washington
voices.washingtonpost.com
Weekly Wrap: A Birth Certificate By Any Other Name
It seems nothing will deter the conspiracy theorists known as birthers, who have become the bane of the Republican Party's existence with their (dare we say wacky) claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and, therefore, is not a natural born citizen.
Birthers who commented on our Thursday posting generally continued to claim that Obama has not produced a true birth certificate, and that the document he produced last year is a fake.
They're also fixated on the type of birth document issued by the Hawaiian government, which is called a "certification of live birth." They refuse for some reason to believe that a certification is the same as a birth certificate.
By all rational accounts, the two documents are most certainly one and the same, only with different titles. (Calling Shakespeare.)
A certification of live birth is the "official birth certificate" of Hawaii, according to the state's Department of Health spokeswoman, Janice Okubo. And the nonpartisan, nonprofit Factcheck.org, which examined Obama's original birth certificate last year at the president's campaign headquarters in Chicago, concluded, "It meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship."
To those who continue to speculate Obama's birth certificate was destroyed, Hawaiian health department officials answered that point of hysteria as well this week.
"We don't destroy vital records," Okubo said. "That's our whole job, to maintain and retain vital records." State health officials said the original birth certificate, the same one reviewed by Factcheck.org, is back in storage in Hawaii.
But still, the birthers ask, why won't President Obama release his original birth certificate and possibly bury the issue once and for all?
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent answer to this question: "Why should he? The demand has no basis in principle and would have no practical benefit."
James Taranto writes in his "Best of the Web" column, "Obama has already provided a legal birth certificate demonstrating that he was born in Hawaii. No one has produced any serious evidence to the contrary. Absent such evidence, it is unreasonable to deny that Obama has met the burden of proof. We know that he was born in Honolulu as surely as we know that Bill Clinton was born in Hope, Ark., or George W. Bush in New Haven, Conn.
"The release of the obsolete birth certificate would not 'resolve the issue' to those for whom it is not already resolved. They claim without basis that today's birth certificate is a fake; there is nothing to stop them from claiming without basis that yesterday's is as well."
As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put it this week, "If I had some DNA, it wouldn't assuage those that don't believe he was born here. But I have news for them and for all of us: The president was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the 50th state of the greatest country on the face of the Earth. He's a citizen."
By Mary Ann Akers | July 31, 2009; 4:15 PM ET
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Rep. McHenry Not Ready For Birther Status
Don't add Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) to the short-but-colorful list of House birthers just yet. It's a club he apparently isn't quite ready to embrace.
After first suggesting at a town hall meeting in his district that he isn't convinced President Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen, the North Carolina Republican backpedaled.
At the forum on Wednesday evening, McHenry, according to the Charlotte Observer, said, "I haven't seen evidence one way or the other" proving Obama's citizenship. He also said the issue is being addressed "in the courts."
On Thursday, McHenry released a statement clarifying his position on the president's eligibility.
"As I stated last night, I have not carefully reviewed the evidence as a jurist would," the congressman said. "However, from what I have read, I have absolutely no reason to question President Obama's citizenship. I anticipate that as a legal matter the courts will continue to come to the same conclusion."...
By Mary Ann Akers | August 13, 2009; 6:47 PM ET
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Birthers, the Few, the Proud, Riling Capitol Hill
Health-care reform may be slow going, but the birthers - the few but furious - are gaining steam.
Sort of.
The so-called birther bill, born out of an unfounded theory that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen, now has 11 House co-sponsors. Not quite a baker's dozen, but enough to serve up a fresh batch of ridicule for the Republican Party.
Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas is the latest Republican to sign onto the bill, which would require any future presidential candidate to provide a copy of his or her birth certificate to prove natural born citizenship.
Does Gohmert believe the conspiracy theorists who argue -- despite plenty of evidence to the contrary -- that Obama was really born in Kenya, not in Hawaii?
"I don't know if it's true or not," Gohmert told the Sleuth in a telephone interview Wednesday evening. "But I read that Lou Dobbs said [Obama's] original birth certificate was destroyed." (That would be Lou Dobbs of CNN, who has helped to perpetuate the Internet-fueled rumor that the copy of Obama's birth certificate produced by his campaign last year is fraudulent.)
Gohmert says he's "shocked that people are saying the people who signed onto the bill are conspiracy theorists." The whole point of the bill, he argues, is to "eliminate all this conspiracy talk."
He pointed out that questions were raised last year about the true citizenship of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was born in the Panama Canal Zone.
When reminded that Hawaii government officials had affirmed and reaffirmed this week that Obama was indeed born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961, Gohmert said, "That's what they say... I don't know if it's true or not."
Gohmert is in the same company as Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the former No. 2 House Republican who is running for Senate in 2010. Blunt, though not an official co-sponsor of the birther bill, was videotaped this week on Capitol Hill by a reporter for the liberal blog Firedoglake questioning Obama's birth creds.
"What I don't know is why the president can't produce a birth certificate," Blunt said. "I don't know anybody who can't produce one. That's a legitimate question - no health records, no birth certificate."
(Never mind that Obama has produced a copy of his birth certificate, which you can find here.)
For Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), who signed on in June as a co-sponsor of the birther bill, the issue has nothing to do with President Obama, according to his spokeswoman, Megan Mitchell.
"It's not about Barack Obama," Mitchell told us. "It's about this question that keeps popping up."
She referred to Mitt Romney's father, George Romney, who was born in Mexico and ran for president in 1968; Barry Goldwater, who was born in Arizona before it became a state; Lowell Weicker, the former Connecticut governor, congressman and senator who was born in Paris; and McCain, born in the canal zone.
Mitchell says Culberson "believes Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States." And she says he believes the copy of the Hawaii birth certificate that Obama produced during the campaign is legitimate. But as a "strict constructionist," he wants to devise a way to settle citizenship questions that might arise with future presidential candidates.
The conspiracy theorists, in part, led Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) to introduce his birther bill back in March. As Posey's spokesman, George Cecala, puts it, the congressman's office "got a lot of folks who called in" and Posey "didn't want his constituents being ignored."
Posey said in a statement provided to the Sleuth that "there have been questions raised in the past about candidates meeting the Constitutional requirements for the Office of President. My bill simply requires that future candidates for president file with the Federal Elections Commission the necessary documentation that shows a candidate has met the three requirements for the Office of President. It simply implements the Constitution through legislation where there are no current standards in law."
Some Republicans are blushing with embarrassment over the birther movement, which forced the White House to address the issue anew this week.
The conservative National Review shudders to think that conspiracy theorists may be overshadowing what the party stands for. "Much foolishness has become attached to the question of President Obama's place of birth, and a few misguided souls among the Right have indulged it," the magazine editorialized this week, warning that the birthers are no different than the left-wing fringe 9/11 "truthers."
"There is nothing that President Obama's coterie would enjoy more than to see the responsible Right become a mirror image of the loopy Left circa 2003," the National Review said.
Which may explain why there are so few Republicans willing to put their names to the birther movement.
Asked why he thought more Republicans hadn't signed on to the bill, Congressman Gohmert said, "Maybe it's because the press goes after them and calls them nuts or something."
By Mary Ann Akers | July 30, 2009; 10:11 AM ET |
