PhillyTablet Inquirer Daily News
Mobile
Home Delivery
philly.com
email
font size
comments
0
options
 
Tuesday, July 28, 2009

NRO to 'birthers': Born in the USA

From Kevin Ferris:

National Review Online offers an excellent editorial that should be read by anyone giving credence to the ridiculous "birthers" movement i.e. The conspiracy theory suggesting that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and isn't a citizen, and thus is ineligible to be president.

Here are the key passages:

"The fundamental fiction is that Obama has refused to release his 'real' birth certificate. This is untrue. The document that Obama has made available is the document that Hawaiian authorities issue when they are asked for a birth certificate. There is no secondary document cloaked in darkness, only the state records that are used to generate birth certificates when they are requested.

"If one applies for a United States passport, the passport office will demand a birth certificate. It defines this as an official document bearing 'your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records.' The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced — the document is formally known as a 'certificate of live birth' — bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate — which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested.

"In other words, what President Obama has produced is the 'real' birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii’s health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama’s birth certificate is identical to that in the state’s records, the so-called vault copy. Given that fact, we are loath even to engage the fanciful notion that President Obama was born elsewhere, contrary to the information on his birth certificate, but we note for the record that his mother was a native of Kansas, whose residents have been citizens of the United States for a very long time, and whose children are citizens of the United States as well."  
 

 

 
Posted by Kevin Ferris @ 11:55 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
Comments   


0 comments
About The Inquirer Editorial Board
Welcome. You're reading the Inquirer Editorial Board's Say What? opinion blog. We hope you enjoy commentary from the Editorial and Commentary pages, in addition to up-to-the-minute opinion postings that appear here for the first time. Here are thumbnail bio sketches and contact information for the editors and writers who produce the newspaper's opinion pages, as well as an archive of recent cartoons by Tony Auth. (Our blog roll follows the ad below.) Please check out the videos from our One Great Idea project. And don't miss our daily online reader polls.
Join on Facebook    Follow on Twitter

Advertise Here