The Phantom Birth Certificate, a Retraction

As a belated follow-up to The Phantom Birth Certificate and mainly as a brief response to Tori‘s comment on that post, I want to withdraw my criticism of the short-form certificate I presented in that post.

The only images of the certificate I came across while writing the post were very similar (read: identical, save for crop/sizing differences) to the image of the certificate presented in that post. If such images were all there was to go by, my criticisms would remain.

However, Tori did what no commenter had done and linked to a trove of images of the short-form certificate, rendering null my criticisms. Better images of the certificate reveal that it does have an embossed seal, it does have an official’s stamped signature, it does have a real document number, and so on.

While it has been said — though I can’t verify this — that Obama could have arrived in Hawaii shortly after his birth and his parents then applied for a Hawaii birth certificate as the requirement of local birth isn’t there to get such a certificate… Well, I suppose some people can dwell on that “what if,” but if the legal requirement has been met (and it appears that it has been) and there is no evidence to the contrary, then whether I like it or not, there’s no reason to doubt that Barack Obama is legally eligible for the job to which America elected him.

12 thoughts on “The Phantom Birth Certificate, a Retraction”

  1. Rick,
    Good call!

    Question what you feel is not properly answered, bring concerns to light that have relevance and when/if the light is shown or the evidence to the contrary is found then give the findings the same effort that you gave the question/concern. Accountability and holding yourself to a higher standard, that is what we all should strive for.

    I did not vote for our sitting president either, however, feeling that I voted for the best candidate does not change the fact that I do support the administration, but not blindly. We need to support each other and call each other out, but we also need to be tactful and work toward the ideal outcome, it is in all of our best interest.

  2. @Lukemcgook
    My thoughts would surround the idea of privacy and concern that someone could attempt to duplicate the document in an effort for identity theft. It is a private/personal document, IMHO.

    1. Privacy? That is such a lame excuse, the man is a public servant. Using that excuse I would also run for president, even though I wasn’t born in the U.S.

      Besides, it is up to each state to verify the candidates’ eligibility before their name can be placed on ballots. Has anyone seen proof from any of the *57* states?

    2. @stephen pitts

      That’s what I tried to tell the people at the DMV! It’s personal! But they made me dig up the birth certificate anyway. Nothing sacred.

    3. If someone tried to steal the identity of the President of the United States… I doubt they’d get too far, you know? Aside from which, does the birth certificate give any information that could be used to steal identities? Social security number? Current address? Credit card numbers? Bank accounts? No?

      “Privacy” is about as lame as an excuse as there is: If he’s been forthright about his past, then there is nothing on the certificate that we don’t already know… If he’s, on the other hand, hiding something, then I guess that would explain why privacy is important to him.

      But it’s not like if the government wanted to see one of our birth certificates we could brush ’em off with some righteous claim of privacy.

      1. First, I am not trying to pick a fight or justify anything (see my first comment stating the fact that I did not vote for the candidate).

        Second, if the candidate was born in another country, don’t you think that the Republican Party would have published this?

        Third, I have a friend that has had their identity stolen starting with a counterfeit birth certificate.

        Fourth, I don’t think that anyone’s birth certificate should be public domain.

        Fifth, if the government wanted to see our birth certificate they would just have to contact the county of birth, simple in Hawaii because there is only one.

        Sixth, there is probably a means (and probably includes some dozen or so government employees or more) to verify this and other contingent information required for public office, especially for specific rules such as this.

        Seventh, and I will stop here, just because someone is a public servant, does not mean that they are public domain.

        1. @stephen pitts

          First. OK, you weren’t trying to start a fight.

          Second. Sure, the R’s would have publicized the fact, had it been known … which it wasn’t and isn’t and won’t be, one way or the other, until Barky lets us have the facts.

          Third. So don’t put the Presidential Birth Certificate online. Just let enough reporters see it.

          Fourth. We’re not talking about “anyone.” If the job description, per the Constitution, requires citizenship-at-birth, at a minimum, and if there’s only one way to prove that the requirement is satisfied, then the privacy claim has to be waived, yes? Let Obama mystify with his secret school records, secret medical records, secret voting records. But let him obey the law in the matter of his eligibility.

          Fifth. Yes, well, that’s what we’re trying to do — get someone in government to contact someone else in government and get the birth info disclosed.

          Sixth. There is indeed a means to verify O’s eligibility, but it can’t be done without his permission or, at this point, a court order. What on the world are you talking about here?

          Seventh. See Point The Fourth.

  3. Actually, it doesn’t matter how you *feel* about the rules. There is a constitutional requirement for the presidency, and it is up to every state to verify the required documentation. Has this been done? Don’t think so.

    You’d also hope that the self-appointed purveyors of truth in the media would have done their homework… But that never happened.

    Would you also attribute the missing college transcripts and medical records to a non-existent right to privacy? So much for transparency in government.

    1. “Transparency” is an illusion, made largely in part by America’s dependence upon the mainstream media. With enough power and money behind it, any lie can be cast to the American people as if it were gospel truth, and given that at any given time something like 80–90% of people in any given group are idiots, it would take a very powerful message of old-school American values to actually undo over 100 years of damage to our nation, returning power and authority to state governments, making “United States” a plural noun once again.

      “A plural noun? That’s your goal?” Well, no, that is just semantics. The truth behind the semantics is what is important: Either America is united under an overbearing federal government that microgoverns our liberties from marble palaces in Washington… or America is a collection of states united by a basic set of values — the Constitution — and a federal government which handles mostly foreign affairs on behalf of the states.

      “We the people…” has a lot more meaning when local government actually has sovereignty. “We the federal government…” is an abomination to that which ought to be the United States.

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