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Obama's birth certificate: is it real?
Bob Brackeen
November 20, 2009 - 4:07pm
TYLER — Warmth from the obama's innaugural dancing shoes had not even cooled before allegations of "a foreigner in the white house" surfaced.
Speculation the president was not born in Hawaii, rather in Africa and should not have the right to be in the oval office.
One fundementalist Christian group even has a half hour infomercial dedicated to the question of the president's birthplace.
In June the Obama administration released a copy of the president's birth certficate: showing the state of Hawaii as home.
They even launched their own website called: fightthesmears.com.
Some still question the authenticity of this document: the absence of an embossed seal and registrar's signature?
Hawaii's Department of Health reports about a dozen e-mails a day inquiring about the president's birth certificate.
The aloha state maintains embossed seal and signature are on the back and would't be seen on a photocopy.
Some East Texans wonder out loud if it is worth the effort on behalf of the president's opposition and if it is simply too little too late in a rising tide of public opinion against a healthcare plan, a deficit and an economy still trying to regain it's land legs.
Plenty of buzz on the internet, but what do East Texans think about from where their commander in chief hails, and if it really matters?






Yes Obama was born in Nigeria but he went back in time to make it look like he was born in Hawaii so he could take over the US. Once he calls off further elections and declares marshal law hes gonna change the countries name from The United States Of America to Obamaland. Then he's gonna get rich by letting people come over and torture americans kindof like in that movie Hostel.
All of you birthers really are crazy.
Did you believe that crap about Bush being AWOL or did you say it was partian crap put out ther to discredit the man. Im willing to bet you thought it was the latter.
Fun Fact of the day:
John Mccain was not born in the United States either. Did you see the democrats bringing that up?
Nick
4 months agoNick, the Democrats did bring up McCain's citizenship. They passed a nonbinding resolution declaring him to be a natural born citizen because both his both his parents were American citizens (not true for Obama) and stationed overseas in the military.
The accusations over Bush being AWOL were dismissed because CBS and Dan Rather ran with forged documents. The same is suspected over Obama's COLB being forged, but that would prove the accusations about him.
The reason Obama was made to appear to be born in Hawaii could have been for obtaining basic American citizenship and not part of a future conspiracy. If he really was born in Hawaii, it should be simple for him to present the original 1961 birth certificate and not a computer-generated and redacted birth abstract from 2007.
ksdb
5 months agoHere is the way to solve the problem: have President Obama switch parties and become a Bible-thumping, mean-spirited conservative. Problem solved! Then all the gripers and whiners would rally blindly to his side and be enraged at anyone who dared to question anything about their leader.
William Lamar
4 months agoI'm not surprised that a repug owned tv station is still perpetuating this lie. Get over it channel 56,or are you trying to impress the fox news worshippers.
Guy
4 months agoSTILL?
Fundamentalists....... sheesh! They have no trouble following their own foreigner, do they?
Kenny
4 months agoGet A moving Van And out with Obama Quicker The Better
big john
4 months agoNo one questions whether Obama's father was a US citizen. He was not. Does that, in and of itself, make Obama ineligible under the Natural Born Citizen exclusion? As it is not defined in the Constitution, then it must be determined by the Courts. Until the Supreme Court defines this term, these arguments are pointless.
One does have to ask why this President refuses to release even the simplest of school records though. Every other President, even the hated Bush, allowed the public to see his school records... why won't this transparent President? Why not simply release records rather than continue to fight in various courts? The fact that he refuses to release records gives many voters reason to question.
jax
4 months agoNo, it does not make him ineligible.
Section 1 of Article 2 of the Constitution:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
It has nothing to do with citizenship of parents. Dred Scott V Sandford took care of that argument. Also, it might be noted that a conviction of a felony does NOT exclude someone from becoming President.
The President has released all transcirpts from school as well.
Scott
4 months agoNo, Scott, he has NOT released those transcripts. If he has, please feel free to post them and prove me wrong.
As to the definition of Natural Born, here are a few thoughts, based upon fact:
The Founders discussed allowing someone in the future take office that did not owe FULL allegience to the United States. Ben Franklin, at least, had a copy of De Vattel, and it was used as a reference when penning the Constitution. Adams, I believe, wrote to Washington imploring him to push that thought process. History is rife with examples of the Royalty marrying outside of the country and the spouse taking over a country of which they were an "outsider". The Founding Fathers sought to protect us from this set of circumstances.
The reason, once the Natural Born clause was ratified (by virtue of ratifying the Constitution), they had to Grandfather themselves is for a BIG reason. If you look at the history, the Founding Fathers WERE born in the US. So if mere birth in the US qualified, why would they have to Grandfather themselves? Answer: they were ALL born British subjects. Note that anyone born here AFTER the ratification of the Constitution are considered eligible (Remember, once we became our own country, those parents were BOTH considered citizens of the new country at the time of the child's birth). Interesting that today's issue concerns a man born a British subject, no? He freely admits being born a "Dual Citizen". The thought process of the Founding Fathers on Natural born was that you owed your allegience to America and America only. A dual citizen cannot, by definition, conform to that requirement.
At the time of the ratification of the 12th and 14th Ammendments, the country was still young. They still knew the thinking of the Founding Fathers. More importantly, the truth was still being taught to the children and the citizenry. We were growing and wanted all to be welcomed. Note that, under this set of circumstances, they did NOT deem these folks Natural Born. Again, ask yourself why not? Answer already given. In order to be a Natural Born Citizen you have to be born to Citizens (note the plurality). This complies with the definition the Founding Fathers set in place of owing alliegence to ONLY the United States. Also, the few Supreme Court rulings on the subject note the plurality of parent(s).
guest
5 months agoAnother dissection of the writer's article:
"In June the Obama administration released a copy of the president's birth certficate: showing the state of Hawaii as home."
June? Of this year? More like August or September 2008. And they posted 2 versions. The first was removed very quickly.
This all seems to be new news for you. No offense, but you really should get your facts straight before posting on a major networks affiliate station website.
Besides the birth certificate issue -- what say you regarding Lolo Soetoro? Adoption? That trumps the bc issue. hmmm?
Soetoro/Obama is not qualified based on 3 facts:
1) Father was a Kenyan. Kenya was a British possession.
2) He was adopted in Indonesia by an Indonesian, Lolo Soetoro.
3) He was born in Kenya. Even the Kenyans consider him a "son of the soil."
TejasKat
4 months agoPost new comment