The "birther" debate

Every president to date has had to submit their birth certificate, even when there was absolutely no question of their origin of birth.

In Obama's case, there was a question, and this should have been produced immediately long ago and taken a matter of minutes to pull up. I mean, who DOESN'T have a copy of their birth certificate, especially if you're running for president? Why did people have to BEG for it in the first place over and over for so very long?

The only reason I can think of that he would have been so amazingly adamant to withhold it is that it shows his mother was 17 when she was pregnant with him on his birth certificate, which would point out the statutory rape of his mother.

If that was the embarrassment he was trying to conceal, I do feel bad about that as it is a personal matter, but you can't blame people for asking "Why is the birth certificate top secret" since it could have meant his immediate impeachment if he were actually born in Africa.

Trump's an idiot!!

Need I say more?

Huh? You do realize that this was all about Trump digging for ratings and publicity, or do you......Of course Obama had to show all proper documents before he was inaugurated.
Trump is a joke....
http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz1KmtY4sDr

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...h_certificate/

From what I understand, Trump still won't drop the issue -Now he's saying the certificate needs to be analyzed for possible tampering.

Trump is doing what Trump does best, selling Trump. And he had no intention of releasing his information. If you read the transcript of that interview, he said "MAYBE" he "MAY consider"... not exactly a promise that would put him in a bind. He does what he does well as a celebrity and businessman, and he did it again.

Lets not pretend that people hadn't been asking for the birth certificate for ages, which the Obama administration repeatedly refused to release. Others had just given up long ago.

The question is, WHY? Its such a simple thing.

Either it was a strategic political move on the part of the Obama administration, figuring that it would naturally result in some opponents uselessly investing effort on that front which could then be swooped down and defeated at will, or perhaps there was embarrassment over the unwed statutory rape of his mother. Can't really know for sure, but at least that's put to bed and more time won't be wasted having to beg the president to release information required for his office.

Yea, pres. Obama wasn't born in the US, and the Holocaust never happened

Just for the record, the flight was NOT paid for by taxpayer dollars. President Obama paid for that out of his own pocket.

The whole thing is just ridiculous. Trump is an idiot. He didn't do anything, except spout his mouth off, something he is, indeed, excellent at doing.

And you're right, c1atsite. Trump is now trumpeting that it needs to be investigated to ensure it's legitimate. So even though President Obama has produced what those idiots wanted, it's still not good enough. I didn't care about the stupid birth certificate...it wasn't important. I'm sure that everything had to be put in order before the man was ever sworn in. (Or maybe I'm just being naive.) And to be honest? Let's bring race back into the picture....not that it was ever really taken out. Had this been a white male Republican? Nothing would have ever been said.

Obama has a point. There ARE more important things to worry about. There are more important things to do. Stop whining about nothing, put your big boy shorts on (and big girl panties as the case may be) and get your butts to work. (And that includes the media who seemed to think it was all such a big deal and wouldn't let it rest either.)

Donald Trump isn't a serious candidate, never was. He's a publicity hound and wants to keep his name in the news so his silly Apprentice show will get renewed. I know his father had money but I have always thought he is the most obnoxious type of person that so often comes from new money.

I'd bet any monies that if Obama were white there would never have been all this stupid business in the first place.

Donald Trump may have a good head for business but he is an idiot in all other regards IMO.

You know, Trump's been patting himself on the back so much I hope he sprains his arm.

Obama did provide a copy of the short form of his birth certificate which is the form most people have when they go into get passports or prove their citizenship. One of the problems with the Arizona legislature is that not all states have a "long form" certificate to satisfy their requirements. They would have had lawsuits continuously when they rejected what another state considered legit.

Why does Obama have to be different? There is nothing that will satisfy them as we will now hear how it is a forgery or altered. They will never accept Obama as a legitimate no matter how much proof is provided (because the proof is coming from the "lamestream media").

Try to get a drivers license or passport without a black & white original PAPER birth certificate (embossed seal and all)...

This whole thing has been a campaign to throw stones at the president.
From 2008:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2...n_the_usa.html As others have said, it was the short form. It was the short form because that is what Hawaaii releases.

So now that Donald Trump and all the other "birthers" have been proven wrong AGAIN, they won't admit it. Instead, they still twist it and say "why didn't he just produce it earlier?" HE DID! He submitted it in 2007.

This is just like all the other Obama bashing emails that have no basis in truth including the prison with the glass walls that Obama was accused of approving (which he's never been to and is not even in the USA).

As many have predicted, already there are questions on the certificate number, since it has a higher number than a certificate from the next day.

Big deal. I once got a license plate with a number one lower than the one a friend got the day before me.

I think questions about the President's academic record are more germane to whether he should have been elected, since he had much more record there than he did as a politician. But when it comes down to it, those questions are really moot; if you're 35 and born in the U.S., you're eligible to be President.

Of course, if we're talking about academic records as being germane...well, hello George Bush II and Sarah Palin

I'm more interested in Donald Trump's tax returns, audited fnancial statements and how he treats his employees (salaries, benefits, etc.). Actually, what's the betting line on the Trump implosion should he decide to play in the big leagues?

I'd like to see some proof that this has been the official practice in this country. Really - George Washington had to submit his birth certificate?

You just referred to Trump's next fiasco that he will use to keep himself front and center in the media - Obama's academic record. Didn't you hear him start on this yesterday? It will be the next big Trump / Fox news major headline.

All of this is a huge waste of time and draws the country away from the important issues we face. Trump's TV ratings are down, yet somehow he fool a large volume of people in this country that his claims are legitimate.

Sorry if this offends anyone personally, but if anyone really believes that Obama is not a native born citizen, they need to take off their foil helmets. And if anyone is purposefully feeding the story in order to fuel the masses, then SHAME ON YOU.

IMO, it's completely ridiculous.

Yes, its a requirement to hold office, and considering the little things you need a BC for, I'm surprised you would even question this considering the height of that office. Washington was a natural born citizen, but he didn't need to be, as he was automatically naturalized:
For three years opponents had been demanding to see the birth certificate, since there was reason to believe he was born in Kenya. Yes, they just want an excuse to get him out of office, but simply providing the original true birth certificate would have ended that in seconds.

This was long before Trump spoke up (and btw, it is pretty impressive that in a couple weeks he accomplished what others failed at for years; pretty good resume builder), and Obama did not need to fly anyone anywhere.

Its right on the Hawaii.gov homepage that you can simply request it by mail:
Obama could have put this to rest in no more than 10 mins of his time, but he willingly chose not to. Was it a political strategy or embarrassment or something else, we don't know and perhaps it doesn't matter, but look at who was really wasting people's time.

President Obama has shown himself to be adept at campaigning, but absolutely tone-deaf when it comes to PR. Yes, he could have put this to rest in a few days, had he chosen to do so. Were his advisors so incompetent they didn't know that? Or did they have some other reason not to release it? "Occam's Razor" says to assume the simplest explanation that fits the facts. I'm going to assume that the former is the case, because they just weren't willing to believe that anyone else could know something they didn't. Then, once they dug themselves a hole, they weren't willing to take the steps to get out of it.

As to the college records, etc., I suspect that will go on until someone produces real documents. Is he required to do so? No, a college degree is not a pre-requisite for being President, nor is a clean criminal record or moral and ethical uprightness, as many of our previous Presidents have shown. My guess on the secrecy? I think Mr. Obama used the affirmative action policies of Columbia and Harvard to get a position he did not academically deserve. That's not illegal, technically. It just makes about 50% of the citizens of the U.S. angry. Why? Because there are plenty of people like me who grew up much poorer than Mr. Obama, had clean records, had excellent academic records, and could not get into those premium colleges because we just flat couldn't afford even the application process, let alone the tuition and other costs.

Is it true that you can't even find a copy of the yearbook at Occidental or Columbia, showing Mr. Obama? I don't know. I find it hard to believe. Heaven knows I get almost daily e-mails from both my right-wing and left-wing friends and relatives that argue both sides. And yes, I do believe that much of that heat is produced by purely idealogical arguments, not to mention theological and cultural biases.

Why was the short form that he released in 2007 not acceptable?

Because it has nothing to show its authenticity, making it pointless for the purpose. A certified birth certificate has a registrar's raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar's signature, the date the certificate was filed with the registrar's office, the parent's full legal names, etc.

Its required when getting a passport and for example in Hawaii for application of native benefits (hence the passage I quoted, as you need a real true BC for DHHL). Even if one thought it weren't needed for the presidency, if it has been such an issue for years, why not simply spend a few minutes and demonstrate it?

I'm hoping that his staff aren't so incompetent that they couldn't get the information, which we can pull up online in a matter of minutes, for years until it reached a boiling point in the press. The BC is really just an excuse by opponents to get him out of office since they don't care for his actions as president, but if such gross incompetence is the case, I sure hope they succeed ASAP by some other means before we're completely buried in public debt and taxes.

It's quite simple, IMO. Our WASP (and one Catholic) former presidents didn't have to endure such ridiculous demands, so as a matter of principle nobody should have given in to the racists demanding it of our first minority president.

It is stamped and embossed on the back.
Again, from 2008:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2...n_the_usa.html

Exactly!!! I agree with you!

Personally, I think he's been holding back all this time, just for an event such as this one.

By letting Trump be the one who finally "won" being allowed to see the birth certificate, he has turned Trump into the birther/tea party "go to guy", which is exactly what he might wish on the Republicans. A big name, rip roarin', well funded candidate...whom the majority of John Q. Public would never vote for. All this time Trump has been sucking up all the Republican oxygen, and this looks to me to be Obama presenting them with a hero they really, really don't want.


Well done, I say.

Of course, the other possibility is, looking at Trump's history of supporting Democrats so heavily, is that the two of them are working together. But that may be pushing machiavellianism a bit far.

Really? Do you remember the demands for George W. Bush's military records? Do you remember Dan Rather ruining his career publishing documents easily shown to be forged? How quickly people forget these things. I'm sure many on the right see this as "payback."

I think both are ridiculous, because there's no sign this White House can plan their way out of a paper bag, when it comes to machiavellianism.

Maybe when Bob Woodward writes his next book we'll find out what really happened.

Interesting perspective.

Ah, but so much has been lost throughout history by those that underestimated their opponents.

I'll be surprised if Trump stays on the election radar for another month, but, he's set the bar. From this point forward, anyone the GOP fields will be "GOP ho-hum candidate X (who FAILED to get Obama's birth certificate)". That is, unless they come up quite quickly with someone who far outshines their current crop. No one seems to be overly excited about any of them thus far, and their being "Trumped" ( ) won't help them in the least.