It's official, Lou Dobbs!  Call off the investigation, House Republicans!  President Barack Hussein Obama, despite the funny name and admittedly different-than-the-guys-on-the-dollar-bills appearance, is a natural born United States citizen, fully entitled to hold the office 58% of American voters elected him to take.

The topic of Obama's "true" citizenship popped up from time to time during the former Illinois Senator's run for the White House, but never gained traction in the mainstream media (other than covering the kooky coverage of other less-than reputable news sources).  Internet nuts and conspiracy theorists charged that Obama- who was born to an American mother in the then-US territory of Hawaii- was actually born in some foreign country, and demanded that the Obama campaign release a birth certificate.  Reluctant to dignify the baseless accusation, the campaign made it happen.  Still the naysayers...well, said nay.  They claimed the birth certificate- which was issued by the Hawaii Department of Health, not Obama himself- was a fake.

Debate about the subject had long been dominated by "sources" outside of what would be considered mainstream...or credible.  Just to give you an idea, swiftboater extraordinaire Jerome Corsi (author of the John Kerry-blasting Unfit For Command work of quasi-fiction that accused Kerry of falsifying his military record) was perhaps the most vocal.  But recently, House Republicans like Republican Delaware Congressman Mike Castle raised the issue, just as CNN anchor Lou Dobbs has repeatedly.  

OK, so let's address the birth certificate issue first.  The Hawaii Department of Health insists that certificate is genuine, and the official responsible for releasing the document- one Chiyome Fukino- personally attests to reviewing the original 1961 document with his own eyes, with the raised state seal and all.  But Fukino must be a bleeding-heart liberal hell-bent on paving the way for Obama's face to be carved into Mount Rushmore, right?  Wrong.  A campaign fundraising database search returns one recent political donation on the part of Mr. Fukino of Honolulu: $600 to the Republican Party of Hawaii.

 But a little more digging put the issue to rest completely.

A 1961 birth announcement ran in the Honolulu Advertiser stating that Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama had welcomed a bouncing baby boy on August 4.  Democrats are good, but not good enough to go back in time 47 years and plant a newspaper advertisement.  Nor were his parents so clarevoyant that they said, "we'd better get something in the paper in case this little guy wants to run for president someday."

Game, set, match, whackos.  We get it, GOP: it's hard being in such an irrelevant minority.  But if you're going to grasp at straws, do you really want to miss that badly?

Hawaii became a state in 1959, two years before Obama was born.

The fact that we can now find a 1961 Honolulu Advertiser with Obama's birth announcement is meaningless. As early as 1948 George Orwell in his novel 1984 revealed that there was an entire government bureacuracy devoted to going back and editing old newspapers to make them match the Party Line. It was the Ministry of Truth.

this is standard bullshit republican strategy. The reason it works is that the media is willing to take it seriously. The most glaring historical example is when the republicans would bring up Whitewater again and again even after the republicans in congress had investigated and found that the Clintons were blameless, twice. They ended up with Ken Starr wasting over $100 million proving that the Clintons hadn't done anything wrong. And you'll still see people like Hannity bringing stuff up from back then, even though it has been debunked by republicans.

Just as you seem to have difficulty distinguishing between a birth certificate (on 'electronic file' with the Hawaii Department of Health since 2001) and a Certification of Live Birth (the vaunted document that we're supposed to believe confirms Obama's Hawaiian birth), you flunk the sexual differentiation test (not surprising for a Daily Kos contributor). Chiyome Leinaala Fukino, MD is FEMALE and not MALE! You wish to issue an erratum in that regard, not to mention other errors in your piece which I would gladly correct, upon request.

Oh and by the way, I know of no 'birther' who alleges that Obama was born in the territory of Hawaii in 1961. Just as the language of Article II Section 1 Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution is plain on its face regarding presidential eligibility, so too might we all stipulate to the plain and undisputed fact that Hawaii was made the 50th state of these United States in 1959. That historical event would have provided an adequate window of time in which 'The One,' wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a Honolulu hospital maternity ward (Kapi'olani Hospital or Queen's Hospital? You decide!), would have graced us all with his blessed arrival on the world stage. Move over, the Dalai Lama!

that this is going to shut the birthers up, do you? These birth announcements have been online at factcheck.org for months, but the birthers are still blathering.

I actually don't mind the birthers. When you see them on TV they look completely stark-raving mad, all wild-eyed and spouting off, and they not only make themselves look stupid, they taint even the (relatively) sane conservatives.

Let them keep it up. They are preaching to a very tiny choir, and all the swing voters are looking at them, mouths agape in astonishment at how whacko they are.

issue is increasing not decreasing. A mere three days ago, the searches on the the term "obama birth certificate" was still approximately, 1.5 million. Today's it's up to almost 5 million. Just spot checking the news blogs and others, I've broken the interest on this in three distinct groups:

10-20%: Right wing nutters saying he doesn't have a birth certificate
10-20%: Left wing screamers saying he in fact does have a birth certificate
60-80%: People who may or may not believe that he has a valid birth certificate but are puzzled about why he just doesn't show it to shut up the nutters who are stirring the pot enough to make them uncomfortable.

Some people think this issue is stupid, others think it's about racism, some is using for politics, but lots are just waiting to see.

No matter what the reason, to me this issue at its core is about distrust of government. The American people are increasingly distrustful of whatever government officials officially declare to be true.

It's odd because though, to me, distrust of government is always a good thing, this is not the way I would have it come about.

is that these idiots don't care about the facts unless they support their case. As one worker at the Department of Vital Statistics in Honolulu put it, if the facts don't match their case, they just choose to believe that those "facts" have been altered or that "its all a great big conspiracy" or "you're lying".

You are attempting to refute lunacy with facts and that can never be done.

Should we deport them all since there is no original hard copy cert for any of them to prove they are citizens??

And how about all the other states that have microfilmed all the originals as well?

In 1961, it was routine for the Hawaii Department of Health to release birth information to the two Honolulu newspapers. The announcements only reflect the fact that a Certification of Live Birth (COLB) was issued for one Barack Hussein Obama. No verification of the accuracy of the announcement was done by either newspaper (kinda like garbage in, garbage out). Who would have cared anyway? Also, the residence address of the Obamas is not factual. A woman living at the same address (presumably an apartment building) in August 1961 has no recollection of a bi-racial couple with a newborn living there.

there are two documents in Hawaii:

Certificate of Live Birth
Certification of Live Birth

The Certification of Live Birth (abstract) was released. A copy of the Certificate of Live Birth (original document) has not been released. According to CNN researchers it has not been released because the original document no longer exists. I would think that even if it only exists as a JPEG or TIFF file, that a copy of it could still be made available to the public. That would technically be easier than creating a photocopy of the original paper document.

It doesn't matter to me if he was born in Africa or Iran. We need to have him removed from the office of POTUS as quicking as possible! They rat has the markings of a Marxist, Islamic dictator.