Why Not a Birth Certificate?

Nirthers, near-nirthers and nirth travelers are fond of the reasonable sounding plea, “If Barack Obama has nothing to hide about his birthplace, why doesn’t he end the controversy by releasing his original birth certificate?”

I can answer that with a counter-question: Why would he want the controversy to end? It makes some of his critics looks foolish and draws attention away from his increasingly feckless record on domestic and foreign affairs. What’s more, even if a few people believe the nirther tale, it does him no real harm. There’d be no moral turpitude on his part if his mother and grandparents had lied about where he was born. Baby Boy Obama certainly didn’t participate in the deception; indeed, there would have been no reason for anyone to tell him about it.

An instructively contrasting nutcase theory is the notion that George W. Bush planned or deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks. Complicity in mass murder is a trifle worse than forging a birth certificate. Naturally, most Democrats rejected this vile accusation against a Republican President. Er, to be precise, Democratic nonbelievers edge out believers by four percentage points (35% yes, 39% no, 26% undecided). A poll commissioned by the Krazy Kos Kidz (and therefore not likely to give any breaks to the GOP) found that Republicans with an opinion reject the nirther position by a three-to-two margin (42% no, 28% yes, 30% undecided).

It’s important for the Left’s propaganda arms to nurture that 28%, just as it was important to keep the Democrats’ large truther wing out of the public eye. And I’m afraid that some folks who ought to know better are helping the Left out. As a small push in the other direction, let me summarize why the nirthers’ demand for “the real birth certificate” is frivolous.

In 2001, Hawaii switched to a “paperless” birth records system. All of the data on extant birth certificates were keypunched into an electronic database. At that time, nobody outside of Hyde Park had heard of Barack Obama. Did a data entry clerk type in imaginary information about him? From whatever motive? Maybe she was a clairvoyant who foresaw that The One would need this small assist from a worshiper seven years hence?

Ergo, Barack Obama’s birth certificate existed in 2001 and contained the same facts as the Certification of Live Birth that the President has produced in response to nirther lawsuits (and that has satisfied every court that has reviewed it). Seeing the 1961 document will add nothing to what we already know.

In order to believe that Barack Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii, one must believe, without a shred of evidence, that either (i) someone has tampered with Hawaii’s electronic records or (ii) the baby’s mother and grandparents concocted a fraud in 1961. That only the latter hypothesis is tenable is proven by the fact that there were contemporaneous announcements of his birth in the Honolulu newspapers.

For those inclined to believe that the Dunmores and their daughter lied about a birth that had actually taken place half a world away, running the risk that their fraud would be exposed by records maintained by the British administration in Kenya, let me suggest that this sort of conspiracy mongering can be taken further.

John S. McCain, III was supposedly born to U.S. citizen parents in Panama in 1936. How do we know that? From records no more inherently reliable than the State of Hawaii’s. Couldn’t John S. McCain, Jr. and his wife have secretly adopted a Panamanian child? Do you think it would have been hard for an admiral’s son to arrange matters with the proper local officials? Can you prove that he didn’t?

Rest assured, whoever your favorite Presidential candidate may turn out to be in 2012, just as convincing a case can be made against his citizenship as against Barack Obama’s. Or against hers – Where are Sarah Palin’s mother’s maternity records?

Somewhere, Rahm Emanuel is laughing.

Comments

[sri]

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