Donofrio team pries previously known information out of Hawaii
Leo. C. Donofrio
I don’t want to make too much fun of Donofrio and his article DoH Reverses Course – Releases Index Data For President Obama, Stanley Ann and Barack, Sr; No Records For Maya Exist. While the fake dramatic aura written into his article is silly, at least it presents some facts.
It has been clear to me since last year that this, and another approach to obtaining records from Hawaii, if pressed, would result in disclosure of this already-public information. The other approach is the Verification in Lieu of a Certificate. But the information pried out of the Department of Health, is the same information the DOH sent to the Hawaii news service and was subsequently printed in two Honolulu newspapers 47 years ago. I suppose it’s nice that Donofrio has another voice from the same source saying the same thing, but there is no surprise here. This really is “old news”.
Leo also “learned” that Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng does not have a Hawaiian birth certificate which–while still claimed otherwise by birthers as recently as by a filing in Hollister v. Soetoro a week ago–is impossible under Hawaiian law. So TechDude (who claimed he could see that the COLB was constructed from a base copy of Maya’s birth certificate) is exposed as a fraud (wait, TechDude was already exposed as a fraud).
It remains to be seen if Leo Donofrio will be believed or demonized by the birthers. The odds are on the latter.
The Long Form – reconstructed
Over the months, bits and pieces of evidence have come forward that provide at a partial view of what President Obama’s original birth certificate must look like.
Starting with the COLB released by Barack Obama himself, we add the recently confirmed Mother’s Usual Address from the newspaper birth announcement, the certificate number from FactCheck.org photographs, the name of the hospital from the President himself in a letter to the hospital on the occasion of their centennial celebration, and some formatting hints from the Nordyke Twin’s certificate.
I took a birth certificate from 1963 and reconstructed a Barack Obama birth certificate with the most accurate content I could. I did not attempt to make a forgery: the fonts don’t match exactly and the security paper background is obviously cut and pasted. But if and when a long form is published, this is the content we should expect to see. The only thing I guessed about was the age of Obama’s father: I put 24, but it could have been 25. If anyone has his date of birth documented, please tell me (and tell the Wikipedia!).
I may kick myself for this but here it is:
Reconstructed birth certificate, click to enlarge
Exhibits:
- “Nordyke” long form 1961 (copy printed and sealed in 1966)
- Obama COLB 1961 (printed and sealed in 2007)
- “Edith” long form 1962
- “Alan” long form 1963
Hau’oli la hanau President Obama
Birthday Boy Obama
As usual, I’m a little behind, but a belated Happy Birthday to you, President Obama, born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
A tale of two images
I got an email from Charles Kerchner (Kerchner v Obama) pointing out that as far as birth certificates go, we have two images on the Internet, one saying President Obama was born in Honolulu and the other in Mombasa, Kenya. He says they are of equal value since they are just images, and indeed the Kenyan certificate is of greater value because while the Kenyan Ambassador has confirmed Obama’s birth in Kenya, and the President’s grandmother testified that she held the baby in Mombasa, no one has come forward to say they were present at Obama’s birth in Hawaii.
Kenya
Hawaii
As with most birther misdirection, a little bit of truth is mixed with lies to fool the credulous.
The truth is that they are both pieces of paper on the Internet, but there are differences.
Kenyan Birth Certificate:
- Very low resolution photos, making it relatively easy to fake.
- The claim that Obama’s grandmother said she held him in Mombasa is a bald-faced lie.
- The Kenyan Ambassador denies ever saying that President Obama was born in Kenya.
- We have no idea where the document came from (no provenance)
Hawaiian Birth Certificate
- Confirmation of registration and Hawaiian birth by state health department
- High-resolution scans and photos, more difficult to fake, examined by independent news organization
- Birth announcement in 2 newspapers
- Clear provenance, campaign officials say it was ordered from Hawaii, and it was presented by (then) Senator Obama himself.
While this little forgery exercise does make it clear that one should be skeptical of documents on the Internet, it also teaches a lesson on authoritative sources and confirmation, vs things that some from nowhere.
There are various internal inconsistencies that have been pointed out that suggest that the Kenyan certificate is more a hoax than a forgery (e.g. the certificate number 47,044 – Obama was 47 years old when he became the 44th president of the U. S. ) One wonders if the signer ODUYA is a play on “Oh, do ya?”, not unlike “Oh really? — O RLY? Once folks on the Internet have had time to paw over it for a few days, I’ll issue a report.
UPDATE!
The original document used to fake the Obama Kenyan Birth Certificate has been found. End of story, thanks to Koyaan.
The elephant in the room
Conservative leaders and pundits are suddenly teeming to address the elephant in the room, the Birthers. For months, there was scant Media coverage of the Obama denialist phenomenon, save bits in the Washinton Independent and the papers in Chicago and Honolulu. Now there are major articles almost every day. (For samples of the stories, see the Obama Conspiracy Theories Media page.)
From the liberal side the articles ridicule the birther movement. Conservatives not only ridicule the birther movement, but they say that the birthers are hurting the Republican party. It’s not only the birthers that are hurting the Republicans. The Conservative fringe has driven out moderates and literate folk, leaving not much more than stupid old southern white guys (according to the Daily KOS birther poll). Republicans in the last election, by running the likes of Sarah Palin (fundamentalist, unqualified) and stooping to the worst kinds of propaganda and mud slinging, already set the tone for the fringe ascendency: the Birthers, the Tea Parties and the Citizen Grand Juries. This is what happens when Rush Limbaugh becomes leader.
