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birth certificate
Jul. 23rd, 2009 10:21 amI'm going to wade into the fetid waters of the Obama birth certificate controversy.
Let us specify that the people who claim that there's some diabolical conspiracy, hatched in 1961 and today including the (Republican) Governor of Hawaii, to manufacture fake certificates to cover up non-wealthy teenage college student Stanley Ann Dunham flying from Hawaii to Kenya just to have her baby there and then returning to Hawaii to plant misleading birth announcements in the local newspapers - that these people are nuts.
The problem is that the response "they're nuts" covers up a question that genuinely puzzles me about this, and it may be difficult to raise the question without being incorrectly taken as subscribing to the nuts theory. I'm just asking the question.
And that question deals with the observation that the document released online is in fact apparently neither the original birth certificate nor a photocopy of it, although various nut-debunking websites say that it is the original. Look at the bottom where it says "(Rev. 11/01) LASER". No document from 1961 would say that. That's even ignoring the typeface, which doesn't look 1961 either. It also appears to be stamped "2007" on the back. This is clearly not the document made at the time of Obama's birth, but one generated at a later time.
At the bottom of the document, it says, "This copy serves as prima facie evidence of birth in any court proceeding," and obviously such a copy is what the State of Hawaii issues to people wanting copies of their birth certificates for passport purposes or whatever, and it is accepted as such. (It also says "Any alterations invalidate this certificate," and perhaps the blacking out of the certificate number does so, but that's another question.) However, "prima facie" doesn't mean "conclusive proof"; it means "on first sight; in the absence of reason to challenge."
So the question is: what happened to the original birth certificate, and why hasn't it been released, and why are people claiming that this is it? A quote at the Snopes debunking says "state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest in it." OK, but this is, for legal purposes, a certified certificate (yea, even a certificated certified certificate of certification), and Obama obviously received it and released it, so why hasn't he received and released the original?
A clue seems to lie ( behind the cut )
Let us specify that the people who claim that there's some diabolical conspiracy, hatched in 1961 and today including the (Republican) Governor of Hawaii, to manufacture fake certificates to cover up non-wealthy teenage college student Stanley Ann Dunham flying from Hawaii to Kenya just to have her baby there and then returning to Hawaii to plant misleading birth announcements in the local newspapers - that these people are nuts.
The problem is that the response "they're nuts" covers up a question that genuinely puzzles me about this, and it may be difficult to raise the question without being incorrectly taken as subscribing to the nuts theory. I'm just asking the question.
And that question deals with the observation that the document released online is in fact apparently neither the original birth certificate nor a photocopy of it, although various nut-debunking websites say that it is the original. Look at the bottom where it says "(Rev. 11/01) LASER". No document from 1961 would say that. That's even ignoring the typeface, which doesn't look 1961 either. It also appears to be stamped "2007" on the back. This is clearly not the document made at the time of Obama's birth, but one generated at a later time.
At the bottom of the document, it says, "This copy serves as prima facie evidence of birth in any court proceeding," and obviously such a copy is what the State of Hawaii issues to people wanting copies of their birth certificates for passport purposes or whatever, and it is accepted as such. (It also says "Any alterations invalidate this certificate," and perhaps the blacking out of the certificate number does so, but that's another question.) However, "prima facie" doesn't mean "conclusive proof"; it means "on first sight; in the absence of reason to challenge."
So the question is: what happened to the original birth certificate, and why hasn't it been released, and why are people claiming that this is it? A quote at the Snopes debunking says "state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest in it." OK, but this is, for legal purposes, a certified certificate (yea, even a certificated certified certificate of certification), and Obama obviously received it and released it, so why hasn't he received and released the original?
A clue seems to lie ( behind the cut )
