For you redbeans!

Obama's birth certificate: Final chapter
By Amy Hollyfield
Published on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 05:21 p.m.



SUMMARY: Since we published Obama's birth certificate, questions about its authenticity have been frequent and fierce. After reviewing the evidence, we're confident in our rulings.
It started as a whisper, a trickle of nagging doubt.

"As a concerned citizen, I'm wondering if there isn't something fishy going on with the Obama certificate."

"I have serious doubts about the purported 'birth certificate' you were sent."

"Something doesn't smell right."

Soon, e-mails and blog posts were flying. As the pace quickened, the tone sharpened.

"You should be apologizing ... for your misinformation regarding BO bogus birth certificate, that you claimed was genuine!"

At full throttle, the accusations are explosive and unrelenting, the writers emboldened by the anonymity and reach of the Internet.

And you can't help but ask: How do you prove something to people who come to the facts believing, out of fear or hatred or maybe just partisanship, that they're being tricked?


• • •
Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate is a document PolitiFact.com had sought for months. Countless chain e-mails, seeking to paint him as a secret Muslim, speculated that his full name included Muhammed (or Mohammed). Some said he is not an American citizen.


As a fact-checking news Web site, we went to extensive lengths to sort out the truth. We got a copy of his 1992 marriage certificate from the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics. His driver's license record from the Illinois Secretary of State's office. His registration and disciplinary record with the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Not to mention all of his property records.

Not one of these documents shows a Muhammed (or Mohammed) in Obama's name. They all read "Barack H. Obama" or "Barack Hussein Obama."

The ultimate document we sought was Obama's birth certificate. Unlike the other documents, 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.

On June 13, 2008, Obama's campaign finally released a copy, while launching a fact-check Web site of its own, Fightthesmears.com. The site is a direct response to allegations about Obama that won't go away: He's Muslim. He took the oath of office on a Koran. He refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. PolitiFact has researched all of these accusations and none of them are true.

When the birth certificate arrived from the Obama campaign it confirmed his name as the other documents already showed it. Still, we took an extra step: We 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.

• Where is the embossed seal and the registrar's signature?

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

• Isn't the date stamp bleeding through the back of the document "June 2007?" (Odd since it was supposedly released in June 2008.)

• There's no crease from being folded and mailed.

• It's clearly Photoshopped and a wholesale fraud.


• • •
At PolitiFact.com, we're all about original sources. We don't take anyone at their word or take the reporting of other media organizations as proof. We go to the heart of the story, the source of the truth — original, corroborating documents.

When the official documents were questioned, we went looking for more answers. We circled back to the Department of Health, had a newsroom colleague bring in her own Hawaii birth certificate to see if it looks the same (it's identical). But every answer triggered more questions.

And soon enough, after going to every length possible to confirm the birth certificate's authenticity, you start asking, what is reasonable here?

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.

Sounds like a Vince Flynn novel.


• • •
Peter Goelz knows a little something about conspiracy theorists.

He was managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board in 1996 when TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, killing 230 people. While the NTSB's investigation found no evidence of sabotage or terrorism, the Internet was stocked with insistent accusations.

"We were right at the beginning of this Internet lunacy," Goelz said in an interview with PolitiFact. "And there were a variety of crackpot Web sites and Web commentators that generated all sorts of rumors. The principle one was that TWA in fact was shot down by an errant Navy missile in ... a live-fire exercise off the Hamptons."

Nine miles off Long Island, in the middle of summer. And then a full-scale coverup by the Navy and all the sailors involved.

"I am sure that we spent another $10-million, perhaps $20-million, out of a $50-million investigation, to just knock down and put to bed these kinds of rumors, these insidious rumors," Goelz said. "We felt like we had to answer every question because it was such a public and dreadful and confounding event."

Goelz, who is now a communications consultant in Washington, D.C., says the Internet has given a platform to anyone to say anything. And a way to find others who want to hear it.

"Online, they can be almost anything," he said. "They can be the crusading investigators that they always wanted to be."


• • •
The Hawaii Department of Health receives about a dozen e-mail inquiries a day about Obama's birth certificate, spokesman Okubo said.

"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."

Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and it is identical to the Obama one we received.

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."

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's the rub. It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice 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.

And that's true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/

Racism won't overcome reality.
Obama is an american citizen who is the president of this great nation.

http://msgboard.snopes.com/politics/graphics/birth.jpg


http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

How's that Beans??

So, what would be so unimaginable, to have bunch of bureaucrats involved in something not quite legal?

May-be this should be used as a defense in court? "Look how many people were involved in my conspiracy! It is over the officially allowed number, therefore, there is no need to investigate!"

The constant repetition of all sorts of allegations such as name, what book he was sworn on, and like, is used to defuse the most important focus matter:

Where is the original time-stained document?

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

And that's true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.

No matter what you say I cannot be convinced he is the answer to the problem. His election is a knee jerk concession to appease the masses.

I could care less what dot com anyone has to say. The answer is still to be fully addressed in the supreme court.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

In college I had three teachers tell me to not believe anything unless there is information to correspond with what you cite that is backed by at least three other unaffiliated sites.


Anyone and I mean ANYONE can claim to be an authority.
I had to have papers graded on where I collected and supported any facts and information and I assure you they made me EARN my grades.

Legal documents ALL follow a set of Standards like embossments and imprints of State Seals.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck but on closer examination looks more like a platypus what are we to believe?

There is something to this matter, that bothers me. If Obama shows his original yellow and aged paper tomorrow, and access for forensic experts to it is allowed I will have no problem accepting that.

However, no one have seen it yet. So, why do I get the feel that to some of us, the truth isn't important? Should we just "trust" him, as we trusted Bush that there is going to be the "Iraqi smoking gun" produced?

And what is this whole thing about his race or religion? Who cares about that? I thought this is the United States of America, where we do not care for one's race or religion, yes, EVEN, IF Obama was not only black but also a Muslim?

THE WRITER OF THESE CONSTANT DEFEND OBAMA ENTRIES IS SOMWHAT INSECURE. THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT OBAMA IS A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTOR.WHO FOR HIS PAST RELATIONSHIS COULDNT PASS A SECURITY SCREEN IF NOT FOR BEING ELECTED PRESIDENT.HE IS A SMOOTH TALKER.GIVES A GOOD SPEECH INSPIRES ALOT OF PEOPLE.BUT THAT WONT MAKE A BELIEVER OUT OF ME.THERE IS PLENTY OF TELEEVANGELIST ON TV WHO ARE WILLING TO TAKE ME FOR EVERY DIME I HAVE,RACISM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.HES SOCIALIZED WITH THE BEST WHITE THUGS IN CHICAGO.IT IS RACISM TO ELECT A MAN SOLY ON THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN.I WILL DEFEND HIM AS PRESIDENT UNTIL I DISAGREE WITH HIM ON ISSUES.I SUPPOSE IM BEING RACIST TO DISAGREE WITH HIS POLOCIES?

I am trying to keep in mind, that the question is not whether the copy was produced according to legal standards.

The question is where is the original certificate. The one that is yellow, and fragile. The document that is a witness to something.

All we are looking at currently is a fresh print. It wasn't there at the year of birth. It can not be a witness to the birth.

http://msgboard.snopes.com/politics/graphics/birth.jpg

It was here.
Oh well you'll have to go to the web site!

OBAMA IS SOOO SHADY.FROM HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH BILL AYERS TO ACORN TO VOTING PRESENT ALL THE TIME IN THE SENATE.TO HIS BIRTH CERTIFACATE.BUT TO MOST PEOPLE THE TRUETH DOESNT MATTER ANYMORE

Went there. This is what is there: The same COPY. Not an Original.

I put this here for my friend redbeans!
She has enough common sense to clearly make up her own mind.

I wouldn't expect y'all to believe **** stank if you held it in your hands, passed it around, and took turns smelling it.
For y'all their will never be belief!

Have fun with it though. I'm glad I could entertain you!

Really? And what about Obama's radical past?

"Corporate greed is white man's greed" was a quote of Obama's.


About racism here?


That and I am not red beans either! I'm Jellybellys! Lots of colors and flavors!

Did it occur to you that people voted for him because they like his issues and it had nothing to do with his color?

Why would anyone take 'YOU' seriously. You haven't even learned not to use 'all' capital letters or learned to space your sentences.

Thank you so much Fanta, I really appreciate that you took the time to find that information for me. However, that doesn't change my mind and make be wanna jump on the Obama bandwagon. He is going to have to prove himself as our President, just as everyone of them before him has had to do for me. Some of them didn't pass. I'm the type of person who is goin to form my own opinion about a person based on their actions and deeds. If he proves himself to be a worthy president than I will be more than happy to say just that. I myself have misgivings about him that are simply based on my own gut feelings. I don't base them on anything the media has said, nor anyone else for that matter. I don't know how to describe it to you Fanta but there's just something about the man that "rubs" me the wrong way. Perhaps that will change with time. Thank you again for getting that info.

You're welcome wing-nut!!

Ya know that's one of the things I appreciate about you Fanta. We may not agree on a subject but we can voice our opinions without having to get ugly with another and we don't take the other's view personally or negatively. Wish more people could do that.