Time to put the ‘birther’ baby to bed

Yesterday Barack Obama released the long form of his birth certificate. Yes, his authentic “Certificate of Live Birth” from Honolulu, Hawaii dated August 4, 1961. This development, which when you think about it, is entirely trivial compared to the real issues he deals with as President, raises a couple of key questions.

First, will this capitulation to the incessant demands of his opponents finally end this ridiculous spectacle once and for all? And secondly, why did Obama choose to release the document now of all times?

Surely, this must take the wind completely out of the sails of the “birther” movement, which claims that Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore not eligible to be the President of the United States.

And yet, as always, there are some people who claim that this document is forged. A quick disclaimer: I am no expert on birth certificates and do not claim to know whether or not this document is legitimate. I will leave that to the government officials in Hawaii who universally assert it is real. Having said that, just by releasing the document, Obama has almost conclusively proved it is real. It seems to me that Obama has little to gain and much to lose by releasing a forged birth certificate. Especially given that little known fact that Obama is natural born by virtue of his mother being an American citizen and resident, irrespective of his place of birth. In other words, there is zero evidence that Obama obtained his citizenship the only other way — by naturalization.

All that talk about British law governing because his father was Kenyan is only so much nonsense. Since when does foreign law control American law? If Donald Trump had the right to claim, say, citizenship in Kazakhstan, would that mean he was disqualified from the U.S. presidency?

Obama was by no means backed against the wall and forced to release the document. He did so (or at least claims he did) only to put the nonsensical swarm of media coverage surrounding his birth certificate in the past.

If it were indeed a fake certificate, his lie would undoubtedly be uncovered. You can bet that just about every expert in the country, or in the world even, is examining this thing like a hawk just so he can be the one to prove that Obama is a fraud.

And that is just what some people are doing. One amusing author that I have come across online states that the document must be fraudulent because the “Date Accepted by Local Registrar” does not match up with the date of birth. All you have to refute that absurdity is notice that the document was accepted the same date the doctor signed it. Also, there are mysterious X’s above the boxes denoting twins and triplets. Naturally, this means that Obama has lost one or two siblings along the way.

I might be left looking very foolish soon if someone can find a fault in this birth certificate, but as far as I’m concerned, there is no reason or need for anyone to be barking up the “birther” tree. It made no sense when people started talking about it and it makes even less sense now.

It would appear that even ultra-conservative stalwarts Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin realize this now. For after the release of the birth certificate, instead of challenging its legitimacy, they challenged the timing of its release by the White House.

Tangentially, Beck lamented the fact that Obama actually held a press conference about his birth certificate. It does seem odd that Obama would stimulate more press about the origin of his birth by releasing a document with which he intended to quell the attention that Donald Trump and the birther movement have gotten.

However, this press is going to be short-lived and should ultimately let people focus on real issues as Obama wants. The thing that both Beck and Palin took issue with was the fact that Obama held this conference on the day that Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, was due to make a speech. Could this be a coincidence? According to Beck and Palin, it was completely by design.

So in other words, they are blaming Obama for trying to shift the media spotlight to something of his choosing. Is that not what all politicians try to do most of the time? To me, this is just politics as usual.