Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories
Encyclopedia
Conspiracy theories about the citizenship of Barack Obama claim that Barack Obama
is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore not eligible to be President of the United States
under Article Two of the U.S. Constitution. Some theories allege that Obama was born in Kenya
, not Hawaii
, or that his birth certificate is a forgery
. Others allege that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia
and lost his U.S. citizenship. Still others claim that because Obama's father was from Kenya, that means he held dual citizenship
at birth (British
and American), and the supposed dual citizenship means Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. These theories have been characterized by some commentators as racist, or a racial reaction to the first black president of the United States.
The claims have been promoted by a number of fringe theorists and political opponents, often referred to as "birthers", some of whom filed unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to disqualify Obama from running for, or being sworn in as President, or to obtain additional proof that he is constitutionally qualified to hold the office of President. Some Republican
elected officials have expressed skepticism about Obama's citizenship or have displayed a lack of willingness to acknowledge it. Republican members of the U.S. Congress and state assemblies have proposed and voted for legislation that would require presidential candidates to provide documentation of their qualifications to be president, including natural-born citizenship.
Belief in the conspiracy theories
has persisted despite Obama's pre-election release of his official birth certificate
from Hawaii in 2008, additional confirmation by the Hawaii Department of Health
based on the original documents, and the April 2011 release of a certified copy of Obama's original Certificate of Live Birth (so-called long-form birth certificate). Other evidence of Obama's Hawaii birth has surfaced such as birth announcements published in August 1961 in two Hawaii newspapers. Polls conducted in 2010 suggested that at least one quarter of adult Americans doubted Obama's U.S. birth,, while a May 2011 Gallup poll found that doubts persisted among 13% of Americans and 23% of Republicans.
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People who express doubts about Obama's eligibility or reject details about his early life are often informally called "birthers", a term that parallels
the nickname "truthers
" for adherents of 9/11 conspiracy theories
. Birther conspiracy theorists reject at least some of the following facts about his early life:
Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital (now called Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children
) in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Ann Dunham
, from Wichita, Kansas
. and Barack Obama, Sr.
, a Luo
from Nyang’oma Kogelo
, Nyanza Province
, Kenya Colony
who was attending the University of Hawaii. Birth notices for Barack Obama were published in the Honolulu Advertiser
on August 13 and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
on August 14, 1961. Obama's father's immigration file also clearly states Barack Obama being born in Hawaii. One of his high school teachers, who was acquainted with his mother at the time, remembered the day of his birth.
Obama's parents were divorced in 1964. He attended kindergarten in 1966–1967 at Noelani Elementary School
in Honolulu. In 1967, his mother married Indonesia
n student Lolo Soetoro
, who was also attending the University of Hawaii, and the family moved to Jakarta
, Indonesia
, where they remained until Obama was ten years old. Obama then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham and has resided continuously in the United States since 1971.
's 2008 presidential primaries
, anonymous e-mails from supporters of Hillary Clinton surfaced that questioned Obama's citizenship in an attempt to revive Clinton's faltering primary election
campaign. These and numerous other chain e-mails during the subsequent presidential election circulated false rumors about Obama's origin, religion and birth certificate.
Jim Geraghty
of the conservative website National Review Online may have sparked further speculation on June 9, 2008, when he asked that Obama release his birth certificate. Geraghty wrote that releasing his birth certificate could debunk several false rumors circulating on the Internet, namely: that his middle name was originally Muhammad rather than Hussein; that his mother had originally named him "Barry" rather than "Barack"; and that Barack Obama, Sr. was not his biological father, as well as the rumor that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen.
In October 2009, anonymous e-mails circulated claiming that the Associated Press
(AP) had reported Obama was "Kenyan-Born". The claims were based on an AP story that had appeared 5 years earlier in a Kenyan publication, The Standard
. The rumor-checking website Snopes.com found that the headline and lead-in sentence describing Obama as born in Kenya and misspelling his first name had been added by the Kenyan newspaper; and did not appear in the story issued by the AP or in any other contemporary newspaper that picked up the AP story.
On June 12, 2008, Obama's campaign responded to the rumors by posting on the "Fight The Smears" website, an image of Obama's birth certificate.
The image released on the website is a scan of a laser printed document obtained from and certified by the Hawaii Department of Health on June 6, 2007. It is a "Certification of Live Birth", sometimes referred to as a short form birth certificate. It contains less information than the longer "Certificate of Live Birth", which Hawaii no longer issues. Asked about this, Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo explained that Hawaii stopped issuing the longer "Certificate" in 2001 when their birth records were "put into electronic files for consistent reporting", and therefore Hawaii "does not have a short-form or long-form certificate". A "record of live birth", partially handwritten and partially typed, was created and submitted in 1961 when Obama was born, and is "located in a bound volume in a file cabinet on the first floor of the state Department of Health". The document was used to create the state's electronic records, and has been examined by state officials multiple times since the controversy began.
In releasing the certificate, the Obama website declared that the rumors "aren't actually about that piece of paper — they're about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen". The campaign also provided the Daily Kos
blog with a copy of the document. Referring to this release, National Review
columnist Jim Geraghty, wrote on June 12, 2008:
Frequent arguments of those questioning Obama's eligibility related to the fact that he did not originally release a copy of his "original" or "long form" birth certificate, but rather "short form" version that did not include all of the information given on 1961 Hawaii-issued birth certificates. It was claimed that the use of the term "certification of live birth" on the first document means it is not equivalent to a "birth certificate". These arguments have been debunked numerous times by media investigations, every judicial forum that has addressed the matter, and Hawaiian government officials—a consensus of whom have concluded that the certificate released by the Obama campaign is indeed his official birth certificate. The director of the state Department of Human Health confirmed that the state "has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". The short form is "prima facie
evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding".
and lacked a stamped seal of the state, which led them to demand that Obama release his "original" 1961 birth certificate. Jerome Corsi
, author of the book The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, told Fox News that "the campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website... it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce." This view was rejected by the state authorities, the media and independent fact-checking organizations. FactCheck.org viewed the Obama campaign's hard copy of the candidate's Certification of Live Birth and concluded:
, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii."
According to TVNewser, CNN
's researchers stated in 2009 that the original birth certificate no longer existed, as Hawaii discarded all paper birth records in 2001, and the certification of live birth was the official copy. Contradicting this report, Janice Okubo, public information officer for the Hawaii DOH, said "We don't destroy vital records." The Health Department's director emphasized the assertion:
Joshua Wisch, a spokesman for the Hawaii attorney general's office, stated in 2011 that the original "long form" birth certificate — described by Hawaiian officials as a "record of live birth" kept in the archives of the Hawaii Department of Health is "... a Department of Health record and it can't be released to anybody", including President Obama. Wisch added that state law does not authorize photocopying such records.
On April 25, 2011, Fuddy approved the request and witnessed the copying process as the health department's registrar issued the certified copies. The same day, Corley personally visited the department headquarters in Honolulu to pay the required fee on Obama's behalf, and received the two requested certified copies of the original birth certificate, an accompanying letter from Fuddy attesting to the authenticity of same, and a receipt for the processing fee. Fuddy said that she had granted the exception to its normal policy of issuing only computer-generated copies by virtue of Obama's status, in an effort to avoid ongoing requests for the birth certificate.
On April 27, White House staffers gave reporters a copy of the certificate, which they had posted on the White House website. It confirmed the details of the official short-form certificate released in 2008.
that the newly released document was a forgery made with image editing software quickly spread on the Internet. The National Review
dismissed the matter of layered components found in the White House PDF by suggesting "that whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii forgot to turn off the OCR setting
on the scanner." and adding "I’ve confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home."
, characterized the demand that Obama provide his birth certificate as an equivalent of making him "show his papers", as Black citizens were once required to do under Jim Crow laws
.
The McClatchy newspapers
gave an explanation of how the story about Obama's step-grandmother began. The tape is cut off in the middle of the conversation, before the passage in which she clarifies her meaning: "'Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America,' the translator says after talking to the woman. ... Another response later says, 'Obama in Hawaii. Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii.'"
Sarah Obama shed more light on the controversy in a 2007 interview with the Tribune Company
. In the interview, Obama's paternal step grandmother stated that six months after Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham were married, she received a letter at her home in Kenya announcing the birth of Barack Obama II, who was born August 4, 1961.
released and attached to court documents a purported Kenyan birth certificate which she said, if authenticated and shown to be genuine, would significantly narrow and shorten the discovery and pre-trial litigation period in the Keyes v. Bowen lawsuit. Legal documents submitted describe the document as an "unauthenticated color photocopy of certified copy of registration of birth".
The document was almost immediately revealed to be a forgery. It purports to have been issued by the "Republic of Kenya", when in fact, such a state did not yet exist at the time of Obama's birth as indicated on the document (Kenya was a British Colony
until 1963).
Subsequently, evidence was unearthed that the alleged Kenyan birth certificate is a modified version of a 1959 Australian birth certificate found on an online genealogy website.
The Washington Independent
website cited an anonymous blogger as having taken credit for the forgery and posting four photos substantiating the claim.
Examples of actual 1961 Kenyan birth certificates have also been revealed, which look substantially different from the document Taitz submitted to the court.
Additionally, some people claim that the information in the birth certificate only has to be based on the testimony of one parent.
On July 27, 2009, Fukino issued a statement explicitly stating she has "seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."
Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo elaborated on state policy for the release of vital records: "If someone from Obama's campaign gave us permission in person and presented some kind of verification that he or she was Obama's designee, we could release the vital record."
A hospital spokesperson at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children has said that their standard procedure is to neither confirm nor deny Obama was born there, "even though all the information out there says he was born at Kapiolani Hospital", citing federal privacy laws.
In 1961, birth notices for Barack Obama were published in both the Honolulu Advertiser
and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
on August 13 and August 14, 1961, respectively, listing the home address of Obama's parents as 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu. On November 9, 2008, in response to the persistent rumors, the Advertiser posted on its web site a screenshot of the announcement taken from its microfilmed archives. Such notices were sent to newspapers routinely by the Hawaii Department of Health.
In an editorial published on July 29, 2009, the Star-Bulletin pointed out that both newspapers' vital-statistics columns are available on microfilm in the main state library. "Were the state Department of Health and Obama's parents really in cahoots to give false information to the newspapers, perhaps intending to clear the way for the baby to someday be elected president of the United States?" the newspaper asked.
There was in fact no such ban; a New York Times article and U.S. State Department travel advisories from 1981 make it clear that travel to Pakistan by U.S. passport holders was legal at that time.
.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...." According to law professor Gabriel J. Chin
, "there is agreement that 'natural born citizens' include those made citizens by birth under the 14th Amendment."
Despite this agreement, two similar but distinct theories nonetheless contend Obama, although born in Hawaii, does not qualify as a "natural-born citizen":
Andrew Malcolm, of the Los Angeles Times
, has argued that Obama would be eligible for the presidency, because his mother was an American citizen, irrespective of where he was born, saying that Obama's mother "could have been on Mars when wee Barry emerged and he'd still be American." According to UCLA
Law Professor Eugene Volokh
, in the hypothetical scenario that Obama was born outside the U.S., he would not be a natural-born citizen since the then-applicable law would have required Obama's mother to have been in the U.S. at least "five years after the age of 14", but Ann Dunham was three months shy of her 19th birthday when Obama was born.
In August 2008, the Rocky Mountain News
ran an online article asserting that Obama is both a U.S. and a Kenyan citizen. This turned out to be incorrect according to FactCheck.org, which noted that Obama was indeed born a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) under British law, by virtue of his descent from a Kenyan father at a time when Kenya was a British colony, but lost CUKC citizenship and became a Kenyan citizen when that country gained independence in 1963. However, Kenya's constitution prohibits dual citizenship in adulthood. Obama therefore automatically lost his Kenyan citizenship on his 23rd birthday, in 1984, by failing to formally renounce any non-Kenyan citizenship and swear an oath of allegiance to Kenya. Although the paper apologized for the error and published a correction, the article continued to provide fuel for online rumors about Obama's eligibility for the presidency.
Notable advocates of the view that Obama may not be eligible for the Presidency include Philip J. Berg
, a Pennsylvania
attorney and 9/11 conspiracy theorist
. Berg describes himself as a "moderate to liberal" Democrat who backed Hillary Clinton for president. Another notable advocate is Alan Keyes
, who was defeated by Obama in the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate election, served as a diplomat in the Reagan administration
, and is currently a media personality and self described "conservative political activist".
Orly Taitz
, a California
dentist and attorney who emigrated from the Soviet Union
to Israel
, then to the United States, and holds dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship, has been called the "queen bee of the birthers", because she is often seen as the face of the movement.
Other notable advocates include Andy Martin, a perennial candidate
who was "widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign" that Obama is a secret Muslim
, and Robert L. Schulz, a tax protester
and activist who placed full-page advertisements in the Chicago Tribune
in December 2008 arguing that Obama had been born in Kenya or had subsequently renounced U.S. citizenship. In December 2008, Alex Koppelman, a senior writer for Salon, characterized nearly all of the prominent people promoting the story Obama was not qualified to be president, including Jerome Corsi, Philip Berg, Andy Martin and Robert Schultz as having a "history of conspiracist thought".
The Constitution Party
, a dominionist third party
, also campaigned for release of Obama's original long-form certificate.
The website AmericaMustKnow.com encouraged visitors to lobby members of the Electoral College to vote against Obama's confirmation as President and become faithless electors. Electors around the country received numerous letters and e-mails contending that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery and that he was born in Kenya, and requesting that Obama be denied the presidency.
Some of the online campaigners coordinated their efforts with weekly conference calls, in which they discussed the latest news and how to advance the story.
The campaign has also been supported by the WorldNetDaily
(WND) website, which sponsored a letter-writing campaign to the Supreme Court. WNDs publisher Joseph Farah
has written a number of editorials arguing that Obama's eligibility needs to be confirmed. WND has mounted an advertising campaign, using electronic billboards to ask "Where's The Birth Certificate?".
The talk radio hosts Michael Savage
, G. Gordon Liddy
, Brian Sussman
, Lars Larson
, Bob Grant
, Jim Quinn
, Rose Tennent
, Barbara Simpson
, Mark Davis
, and Fred Grandy
have all promoted the ineligibility claims on their radio shows. Rush Limbaugh
, Sean Hannity
and Lou Dobbs
have also broached the issue several times on their shows. Savage, during an episode of his nationally syndicated radio show Savage Nation, said that "We're getting ready for the Communist takeover of America with a noncitizen at the helm."
Some celebrities have promoted or touched upon the ineligibility claims, as well. In August 2009, actor Chuck Norris
, while not embracing the eligibility claims, wrote an open letter
to Obama urging that he officially release his "original birth certificate", saying, "Refusing to post your original birth certificate is an unwise political and leadership decision that is enabling the 'birther' controversy." In December 2010, Baltimore Orioles
baseball player Luke Scott asserted in a Yahoo!
interview that Obama "was not born here" and that his birth certificate was never released. The Huffington Post reported that, in April 2011 during his stage show, Charlie Sheen
said, "For starters, I was fucking born here, how about that? And I got proof! Nothing photoshopped about my birth certificate."
The anti-Obama campaigners have not, however, been unanimous in their approach. For example, WorldNetDaily has been critical of Philip Berg's forgery claims, saying that a "WND investigation into Obama's [short form] birth certificate utilizing forgery experts ... found the document to be authentic". At the same time, WND has been urging Obama to release his original long-form certificate, and contends that "Hawaii at the time of Obama's birth allowed births that took place in foreign countries to be registered in Hawaii", ignoring the fact that a birth certificate issued in such circumstances would list the actual place of birth, not a Hawaiian location such as Honolulu. A subsequent WND article seemed to backtrack on the earlier one, saying of the experts it had quoted earlier that "None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery."
According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center
, "the birther movement has gained a large following on the radical right ... it has been adopted by the most noxious elements out there". Some of those "noxious elements" include a number of avowed white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.
James von Brunn, an avowed white supremacist charged as the gunman in the June 10, 2009, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting
, had previously posted messages to the Internet accusing Obama and the media of hiding documents about his life.
was asked if there was any truth to the rumors that Obama was not a natural-born citizen. According to the paper, Shelby responded that "Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate."
A Shelby spokesperson denied the story, but the newspaper stood by it.
approached Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt
asking him about the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Blunt responded: "What I don’t know is why the President can’t produce a birth certificate. I don’t know anybody else that can’t produce one. And I think that’s a legitimate question. No health records, no birth certificate." Blunt's spokesperson later claimed that the quote was taken out of context.
on September 5, 2009, Republican congresswoman Jean Schmidt
replied to a woman who commented that Obama was ineligible for the Presidency, "I agree with you. But the courts don't." Schmidt's office subsequently responded that a video clip of this comment was "taken out of context", and reiterated that her stated position is that Obama is a citizen.
She had earlier voted to certify the Electoral College vote affirming his presidency, and had said she believes Obama is a U.S. citizen. The statement was issued in response to a July 28, 2009, YouTube
video in which Schmidt was seen running away from Mike Stark
when he asked whether or not she had any questions about President Obama's citizenship status.
replied to a question about whether he believed that Obama "is a native-born American citizen who is eligible to serve as president" with a statement that "I am joining several of my colleagues in the House in writing a letter to the President asking that he release a copy of his birth certificate so we can have an answer to this question." Contrasting the differing fates of Deal, who won the 2010 gubernatorial election
, and former Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney
, who lost her primary after endorsing 9/11 conspiracy theories, David Weigel
of Slate
noted: "Dipping a toe into the birtherism fever swamp didn't stop Deal from winning a statewide primary."
' radio talk show, Humphries asked Sarah Palin
if she would make Barack Obama's birth certificate a campaign issue in 2012, should she decide to run. Palin responded, "I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers." Humphries followed up, asking whether she thinks Obama's birth certificate is a fair question to be looking at. Palin answered, "I think it's a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records—all of that is fair game. The McCain–Palin campaign didn't do a good enough job in that area."
After news organizations and blogs picked up the quotation and associated Palin's comments with the "birther" movement, Palin issued a statement on her Facebook
page in which she clarified that she meant to say that voters have the right to ask questions, and she herself has never asked Obama to produce a birth certificate. She then went on to compare questioning of Obama's birth certificate to questions that were raised during the 2008 presidential elections about her maternity
to her son, Trig. The linkage between the question whether Trig is her son to Barack Obama's birth certificate issues has been heavily criticized by Mark Milian of the Los Angeles Times. In addition, Andrew Sullivan
, an established skeptic of Palin's relationship with Trig, wrote in response to her comments: "Palin has never produced Trig's birth certificate or a single piece of objective medical evidence that proves he is indeed her biological son."
, a local paper in Hutchinson, Kansas
, withdrew their endorsement of Mann, saying that Mann "questions the citizenship of President Barack Obama despite evidence that is irrefutable to most objective, rational people – including a birth certificate released by the Hawaii secretary of state and birth announcements printed in Honolulu's two major newspapers". Mann responded that he was "disappointed and mystified by the Hutchinson News decision to withdraw their endorsement over a misunderstanding of [his] position", as he is not "interested in pursuing this issue in Congress", and he has "never had any interest in spending any time on the matter". Mann was subsequently defeated in the Republican primary by state senator Tim Huelskamp
.
on July 11, 2010, Senator David Vitter
responded to a question about Barack Obama's birth certificate saying "I personally don't have standing to bring litigation in court, but I support conservative legal organizations and others who would bring that to court. I think that is the valid and most possibly effective grounds to do it." His campaign did not provide any additional comments on the matter.
Newt Gingrich
stated that Obama could only be understood by people who "understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior". While Gingrich did not define what constitutes "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior", White House Press Secretary
Robert Gibbs
accused Gingrich of "trying to appeal to the fringe of people who don't believe the president was born in this country". Gibbs went on to say, "You would normally expect better of somebody who held the position of Speaker of the House, but look, it is political season, and most people will say anything, and Newt Gingrich does that on a, genuinely, on a regular basis."
's radio program Mike Huckabee
, a 2008 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, falsely claimed that Obama had been raised in Kenya and that "[Obama] probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather." Huckabee, speaking on The O'Reilly Factor
, said that he misspoke and intended to say Indonesia, characterizing his own comment as a "verbal gaffe".
told conservative radio host Jeff Katz on his program, "I'll tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for president of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate, so we can get that off the table." Previously on Good Morning America
, when asked about President Obama's origins, she replied, "Well, that isn't for me to state. That's for the president to state."
Sheriff Joe Arpaio
ordered his "cold case posse" to investigate the authenticity of Barack Obama's birth certificate, after receiving a complaint about Obama from the "Surprise Tea Party".
, Donald Trump
said he was seriously considering running for president, that he was a "little" skeptical of Obama's citizenship, and that someone who shares this view shouldn't be so quickly dismissed as an "idiot". Trump added, "Growing up no one knew him." Later, Trump appeared on The View repeating several times that "I want him (Obama) to show his birth certificate." He speculated that "there’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like", a comment which host Whoopi Goldberg
described as "the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages". On the March 30, 2011, edition of CNN Newsroom
, anchor Suzanne Malveaux
commented on Trump's statements, pointing out that she had made a documentary for which she had gone to Hawaii and spoken with people who knew Obama as a child. In an NBC TV interview broadcast on April 7, 2011, Trump said he would not let go of the issue, because he was not satisfied that Obama had proved his citizenship. After Trump began making his views public, he was contacted by Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, who was reportedly on the phone with Trump every day for a week, providing Trump with a "birther primer", answers to questions, and advice. After Obama released his long form birth certificate on April 27, 2011 Trump said "I am really honored and I am really proud, that I was able to do something that nobody else could do".
Although claims about Obama's citizenship were evaluated in 2008 by the McCain Campaign
and ultimately rejected, they became a significant issue among sections of the political right. By mid-2009, the citizenship issue was one of the hottest and most lucrative sources of fundraising for organizations on the right that raise funds through direct mail and telemarketing. Online petition sites such as that of Alan Keyes
, who has been collecting signatures on the birth certificate issue, are a major source for generating mailing lists of movement conservatives. The web site WorldNetDaily published more than 200 articles on the subject by July 2009 and has sold billboards, bumper stickers and postcards asking "Where's the birth certificate?" and similar slogans in an effort which has "already raised tens of thousands of dollars."
Moderate conservatives have found themselves "bombarded with birther stuff". Protesters at the Tea Party protests in 2009 carried signs about the birth certificate issue, some of which were recommended by protest organizers. In an incident that attracted widespread media coverage, moderate Republican
Representative Michael Castle was booed and heckled during a July 2009 town hall meeting in Georgetown, Delaware
, when he told a woman protesting about Obama's birth certificate: "if you’re referring to the president there, he is a citizen of the United States."
NBC Nightly News
reported that other members of Congress often hear the issue too; an anonymous congressman told the program that he was reluctant to advertise his own town hall meetings for fear of this issue drowning out everything else.
A number of Republican legislators have, proposed legislation and constitutional amendments
at the state and federal levels to address issues raised by the birth certificate campaigners. Some Republicans are said to "want the issue to go away", seeing it as a distraction. Democratic
commentators have criticized the reluctance of some Republicans to distance themselves from the proponents of the conspiracy theories, suggesting that "Republican officials are reluctant to denounce the birthers for fear of alienating an energetic part of their party's base". NBC News
' "First Read" team commented: "the real story in all of this is that Republican Party has a HUGE problem with its base right now."
Republican National Committee
Chairman Michael Steele released a statement through his spokesperson saying, "Chairman Steele believes that this is an unnecessary distraction and believes that the president is a U.S. citizen."
Conservative Joel Pollak
, writing for The American Thinker
, has stated that the reason the "Birther theory" has caught on particularly among conservatives, is the weakness of the Republican opposition, stating:
Political analyst Marc Ambinder
of The Atlantic and CBS News
, suggests that the birther phenomenon goes to the heart of the dilemma now facing the Republican Party
, positing that
Political analyst Andrew Sullivan
, writing in The Sunday Times
, stated
' s OC Political Pulse poll found that a third of responding Republicans believed that Obama had been born outside the United States.
As a result of the widespread publicity given to the citizenship controversy, 60% of respondents in an Ohio State University
survey carried out in November 2008 had heard of the issue. However, only 10% believed the claims that Obama was not a citizen.
An opinion poll carried out for Daily Kos
by Research 2000
in July 2009 found that 77% of Americans believed that Obama was born in the U.S., while 11% didn't, and 12% were unsure. However, Republicans and Southerners were far more likely than other political or demographic groups to doubt that Obama was born in the United States. 58% of Republicans either believed that Obama was not born in the U.S. (28%) or were not sure (30%), with 42% believing that he was. An overwhelming majority of Democrats (93%) and independents (83%) believed that he was born in the U.S. Support for the belief that Obama was born outside the U.S. was strongest in the South, where only 47% of those polled believed he was born in the U.S., compared with an average of 90% of residents of the Northeast, Midwest and West. A marked racial disparity in the South was also apparent.
The Politico
' s congressional reporter, Glenn Thrush, commented that the Research 2000 poll "explains why Republicans, including Roy Blunt, are playing footsie with the Birther fringe". Writing on National Journal's Pollster.com blog, Brendan Nyhan
observed that the poll "suggests that the encouragement of the birth certificate myth by conservative pundits and Republican politicians has begun to activate the GOP base on this issue".
A Public Policy Polling
survey carried out in August 2009 found that 32% of Republicans in Virginia
thought that Obama was born in the U.S., 41% thought he was foreign-born and the remaining 27% were unsure.
In Utah
, an August 2009 poll carried out for the Deseret News and KSL-TV
found that 67% of Utahns accepted the evidence that Obama was born in the U.S. The poll found that those who do not believe that Obama was born in the United States, or do not know, are predominantly middle-aged, lower-income Republican-leaning individuals without a college education.
A Pew Research Center
poll found that 80% of Americans had heard about the Obama citizenship claims by August 2009. The poll found a significant partisan divide in views of the news coverage, with 58% of Democrats saying that the allegations had received too much attention from the media. Republicans were more inclined to say that the allegations had received too little attention, with 39% expressing this view against only 26% saying that the controversy had received too much attention.
In a Harris Poll online survey of 2,320 adults conducted in March 2010, 25% of the respondents said they believed that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president". In a July 2010 CNN poll of adult Americans, 16% said had doubts that Obama was born in the United States, and a further 11% were certain that he was not.
A Gallup
telephone poll of 1018 adults conducted in May 2011 found that 5% of respondents believed that Obama was "definitely born in another country" and 8% believed he was "probably born in another country", versus 47% believing he was "definitely" and 18% "probably" born in the US. Broken down by political affiliation, the same poll found that 23% of self-identified Republicans, 14% of independents, and 5% of Democrats thought Obama was definitely or probably born in another country.
supporters believe Obama is not eligible to hold public office (see Opinion surveys section), Republicans sometimes found themselves caught in a dilemma between losing support or damaging their credibility. They had "to walk the fine line of humoring conspiracy-minded supporters without explicitly questioning Obama's legitimacy..." Other Republicans, including former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty
and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum
, however, have plainly rejected these claims.
An example of these situations is Mike Castle, then Representative for Delaware
who ran in 2010 for Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden
. At a town hall meeting, Castle was confronted by birther constituents who jeered him for insisting that Obama is a citizen of the United States. Mike Castle, one of the leading Republican moderates in the House, was later defeated by Tea Party
-backed Christine O'Donnell
in Republican primary, who herself later lost
the general election to Democratic nominee Chris Coons.
Democrat Philip Berg's lawsuit allegations that Obama had lost his U.S. citizenship while living in Indonesia, were criticized by WND in August 2008 as not supported by U.S. citizenship law. At that time, WND also reported being told by forgery experts that "many of the forgery claims made against the image were inconclusive or falsified, leaving them no evidence that would cast doubt on the image's authenticity." However, by December 20, WND publisher Joseph Farah
said the authenticity of the birth certificate image was under serious question. Following criticism from the media, Farah defended his apparent reversal saying WNDs August 2008 report had been based on the best information available at the time, and the real issue was not the "veracity of the image", rather it was that information was missing such as the location of the birth and the name of the delivery physician.
Proponents of claims doubting Obama's eligibility have been dubbed "birthers" by their critics, who have drawn a parallel with 9/11 conspiracy theorists
or "truthers". Leslie Savan of The Nation
has compared the so-called "birthers" to other groups as well, including those who deny the moon landing, the Holocaust
or global warming
; "Teabaggers who refuse to believe they must pay taxes" and creationists who believe the earth is 6,000 years old. MSNBC
political commentator Rachel Maddow
has defined a "birther" as: Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin
has said trutherism exists on both the left and the right, and has described its persistence: "The plain truth will never mollify a Truther. There’s always a convoluted excuse – some inconsequential discrepancy to seize on, some photographic "evidence" to magnify into a blur of meaningless pixels – that will rationalize irrationality".
A number of conservative commentators including Malkin have criticized the birth-certificate theorists and their effect on the wider conservative movement. In late 2008, Malkin said a "dangerously large segment" of "birth certificate hunters" had "lurched into rabid Truther territory". She also opined there may be a "seed of a legitimate constitutional issue" related to enforcing the citizenship requirement for presidential candidates. Talk show
host Michael Medved
, has also attacked Obama birth-certificate theorists, calling them "the worst enemy of the conservative movement" for making other conservatives "look sick, troubled and not suitable for civilized company." Conservative columnist Ann Coulter
has referred to the birthers as "just a few cranks." Paleoconservative pundit Steve Sailer
has dismissed the theory saying, "Of course he was born in Hawaii ... The idea that his heavily pregnant mother ... would get on an early 707 and fly at great expense to some foreign country is ridiculous – especially the popular theory that he was born in Kenya. Do you know how many different flights she would have had to take to get to Kenya in 1961?"
An editorial in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
dismissed the claims about Obama's eligibility as proposing "a vast conspiracy involving Obama's parents, state officials, the news media, the Secret Service
, think-tanks and a host of yet-to-be-uncovered others who have connived since Obama's birth to build a false record so that he could eventually seek the presidency 47 years later." The St. Petersburg Times'
fact-checking website, PolitiFact.com, concluded its series of article on the birth certificate issue by saying:
In November 2008, commentator and social critic Camille Paglia
criticized the birther's "blathering, fanatical overkill" but also questioned Obama's response: "Obama could have ended the entire matter months ago by publicly requesting Hawaii to issue a fresh, long-form, stamped certificate and inviting a few high-profile reporters in to examine the document and photograph it", she said. A parenthetical in the same article noted that "(The campaign did make the "short-form" certificate available to Factcheck.org)".
Factcheck.org noted, "The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department."
Writing in December 2008, Alex Koppelman discussed the validity of the common argument – that Obama should release a copy of his full, original certificate and the rumors and doubts would disappear. Conspiracy theory experts told Koppelman that when committed conspiracists are presented with more data debunking their theory, they refuse to accept the new evidence. "Whatever can't be ignored can be twisted to fit into the narrative; every new disclosure of something that should, by rights, end the controversy only opens up new questions, identifies new plotters", he wrote. Because Obama's release of the short-form had only "stoked the fever of conspiracy mongers", Koppleman predicted that releasing the long-form certificate "would almost certainly" continue the rumor cycle.
In response to the notion that Obama's grandparents might have planted a birth announcement in newspapers just so their grandson could some day be president, FactCheck suggested that "those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat." Brooks Jackson, the director of FactCheck, comments that "it all reflects a surge of paranoid distress among people who don't like Barack Obama" and who want the election results to go away. Chip Berlet
, a journalist who has studied the spread of conspiracy theories, notes "For some people, when their side loses an election, the only explanation that makes sense to them – that they can cope with – is that sinister, bad, evil people arranged some kind of fraud." American political writer Dana Milbank
, writing for the Washington Post, describes the Obama citizenship theories of Bob Schulz (chairman of the We the People Foundation
, which in 2008 publicly challenged Obama's citizenship) as "hysteria". Colorado
elector Camilla Auger, responding to lobbying of members of the state's electoral college, commented: "I was concerned that there are that many nutty people in the country making depressing, absurd allegations."
Some commentators have asserted that racism
is a factor motivating the promotion of Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. J. Richard Cohen, the President of the Southern Poverty Law Center
, an organization that monitors hate groups and extremism, wrote an e-mail to supporters in July 2009 declaring: "This conspiracy theory was concocted by an anti-Semite and circulated by racist extremists who cannot accept the fact that a black man has been elected president." An academic psychologist commented that a study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
supported a conclusion that racism played a role in the birther movement. Donald Trump's questioning how Obama gained admission to two Ivy-League institutions, as well as his comment, "I have a great relationship with the blacks," led David Remnick
, David Letterman
, and Bill Maher
, among others, to accuse Trump of racism, and an increased attention on race with respect to Obama. In April, 2011 Marilyn Davenport, a Tea Party activist and member of the executive committee of the Republican Party's local Orange County, California
created a nationwide controversy when she circulated a photograph by email, widely seen as racist, that had been edited to depict Barack Obama as the child of two chimpanzees, and to which she had added the caption, "Now you know why no birth certificate". The party chapter censured her and asked her to resign, but she refused. Following the release of Obama's long form certificate later that month, The New York Times remarked in an editorial that, "It is inconceivable that this campaign to portray Mr. Obama as the insidious 'other' would have been conducted against a white president."
Although Obama was confirmed as president-elect by Congress on January 8, 2009, and sworn in as President on January 20, litigation continued into his presidency. Numerous individuals and groups have filed state or federal lawsuits seeking to have Obama disqualified from standing or being confirmed for the Presidency, or to compel him to release additional documentation relating to his citizenship. By mid-December 2008, at least 17 lawsuits had been filed challenging Obama's eligibility in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey, Texas and Washington. No such suit had resulted in the grant of any relief to the plaintiffs by any court. All of the cases have been rejected in lower courts. Three post-election suits were dismissed by the Supreme Court of the United States
.
In April 2011, the Arizona legislature became the first to pass a bill "requiring President Obama and other presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names can appear on the state's ballot". The bill was vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer
on April 18.
, WorldNetDaily reporter Lester Kinsolving
asked about Obama's birth certificate. White House press secretary
Robert Gibbs
replied, "It's on the Internet", to which Kinsolving responded "No, no, no – the long form listing his hospital and physician." Gibbs responded as follows:
At a July 27, 2009, press briefing, radio talk show host Bill Press
asked Gibbs if there was anything he could say to make the issue go away. Gibbs answered, "No. I mean, the God's honest truth is no," because "nothing will assuage" those who continue to pursue what he called "made-up, fictional nonsense" despite the evidence that Obama had already provided.
On August 6, 2009, Gibbs commented, "You couldn't sell this script in Hollywood," and summarized the contentions that he considered "totally crazy":
, Obama commented, "Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith. Or for that matter my citizenship." He directly addressed the issue in August 2010, in an interview with Brian Williams
. Williams asked Obama about the fact that a fifth of the American people do not believe that he is either American born or a Christian. Obama responded that "there is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly". He then added "I can't spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead."
On a few occasions, Obama has joked about the conspiracy theories surrounding his birth certificate and citizenship. At the 2010 White House Correspondents' Dinner
, Obama said there are few things in life harder to find and more important to keep than love, and then added, "Well, love and a birth certificate." At the 2011 Gridiron Dinner, Obama referred to Bruce Springsteen
's song, "Born in the U.S.A.
", and commented, "Some things just bear repeating." On March 17, 2011 (Saint Patrick's Day
), Obama said, "Now, speaking of ancestry, there has been some controversy about my own background. Two years into my presidency, some are still bent on peddling rumors about my origins. So today, I want to put all those rumors to rest. It is true my great-great-great-grandfather really was from Ireland. It’s true. Moneygall
, to be precise. I can’t believe I have to keep pointing this out."
In an April 2011 interview with George Stephanopoulos
, Obama said, "I think that over the last two and a half years there's been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically expedient in the short-term for Republicans, but creates, I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in a general election where most people feel pretty confident the President was born where he says he was, in Hawaii. He doesn't have horns. We may disagree with him on some issues and we may wish that you know, the unemployment rate was coming down faster and we want him to know his plan on gas prices. But we're not really worrying about conspiracy theories or ... birth certificates. And so ... I think it presents a problem for them."
On April 27, 2011, referring to "sideshows and carnival barkers", Obama appeared in the White House press room an hour after the release of the long form and said, "I know there is going to be a segment of people for which no matter what we put out this issue will not be put to rest. But I am speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as to the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do."
Analysis
Commentary
Multimedia
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore not eligible to be President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
under Article Two of the U.S. Constitution. Some theories allege that Obama was born in Kenya
Kenya Colony
The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya was part of the British Empire in Africa. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British crown colony in 1920...
, not Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, or that his birth certificate is a forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
. Others allege that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and lost his U.S. citizenship. Still others claim that because Obama's father was from Kenya, that means he held dual citizenship
Multiple citizenship
Multiple citizenship is a status in which a person is concurrently regarded as a citizen under the laws of more than one state. Multiple citizenships exist because different countries use different, and not necessarily mutually exclusive, citizenship requirements...
at birth (British
British nationality law
British nationality law is the law of the United Kingdom that concerns citizenship and other categories of British nationality. The law is complex because of the United Kingdom's former status as an imperial power.-History:...
and American), and the supposed dual citizenship means Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. These theories have been characterized by some commentators as racist, or a racial reaction to the first black president of the United States.
The claims have been promoted by a number of fringe theorists and political opponents, often referred to as "birthers", some of whom filed unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to disqualify Obama from running for, or being sworn in as President, or to obtain additional proof that he is constitutionally qualified to hold the office of President. Some Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
elected officials have expressed skepticism about Obama's citizenship or have displayed a lack of willingness to acknowledge it. Republican members of the U.S. Congress and state assemblies have proposed and voted for legislation that would require presidential candidates to provide documentation of their qualifications to be president, including natural-born citizenship.
Belief in the conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
has persisted despite Obama's pre-election release of his official birth certificate
Birth certificate
A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a child. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuing registration of that birth...
from Hawaii in 2008, additional confirmation by the Hawaii Department of Health
Hawaii Department of Health
The Hawaii Department of Health is a state agency of Hawaii, with its headquarters in Honolulu CDP, City and County of Honolulu on the island of Oahu.-External links:*...
based on the original documents, and the April 2011 release of a certified copy of Obama's original Certificate of Live Birth (so-called long-form birth certificate). Other evidence of Obama's Hawaii birth has surfaced such as birth announcements published in August 1961 in two Hawaii newspapers. Polls conducted in 2010 suggested that at least one quarter of adult Americans doubted Obama's U.S. birth,, while a May 2011 Gallup poll found that doubts persisted among 13% of Americans and 23% of Republicans.
Early life of Obama
People who express doubts about Obama's eligibility or reject details about his early life are often informally called "birthers", a term that parallels
the nickname "truthers
9/11 Truth Movement
9/11 Truth movement is a collective name for loosely affiliated organizations and individuals who question the accepted account of the September 11, 2001, attacks....
" for adherents of 9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories are theories that disagree with the widely accepted account that the September 11 attacks were perpetrated solely by al-Qaeda. These theories arose because of what proponents of the conspiracy theories believe to be inconsistencies in the official conclusions or some...
. Birther conspiracy theorists reject at least some of the following facts about his early life:
Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital (now called Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children
Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children
Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children is part of Hawaii Pacific Health's network of hospitals. It is located in Honolulu, Hawaii, within the residential inner city district of Makiki...
) in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Ann Dunham
Ann Dunham
Stanley Ann Dunham , the mother of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, was an American anthropologist who specialized in economic anthropology and rural development. Dunham was nicknamed Anna, later known as Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, and finally Ann Dunham Sutoro...
, from Wichita, Kansas
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
. and Barack Obama, Sr.
Barack Obama, Sr.
Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was a Kenyan senior governmental economist and the father of U.S. President Barack Obama. He is a central subject in his son's memoir, Dreams from My Father.-Early life:...
, a Luo
Luo (Kenya and Tanzania)
The Luo are an ethnic group in Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. They are part of a larger group of ethnolinguistically related Luo peoples who inhabit an area including southern Sudan, northern and eastern Uganda, western Kenya, and northern Tanzania.The Luo are the third largest...
from Nyang’oma Kogelo
Nyang’oma Kogelo
Nyang’oma Kogelo, also known as Kogelo, is a village in Siaya District, Nyanza Province, Kenya. It is located near the equator, 60 kilometres west-northwest of Kisumu, the provincial capital. The population of Nyangoma-Kogelo is 3,648 ....
, Nyanza Province
Nyanza Province
Nyanza Province of Kenya, is one of Kenya's eight administrative provinces. It is located in the southwest part of Kenya around Lake Victoria. Nyanza includes part of the eastern edge of Lake Victoria and is inhabited predominantly by the Luo. There are also Bantu-speaking tribes such as the...
, Kenya Colony
Kenya Colony
The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya was part of the British Empire in Africa. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British crown colony in 1920...
who was attending the University of Hawaii. Birth notices for Barack Obama were published in the Honolulu Advertiser
Honolulu Advertiser
The Honolulu Advertiser was a daily newspaper published in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the largest daily newspaper in the American state of Hawaii. It published daily with special Sunday and Internet editions...
on August 13 and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii...
on August 14, 1961. Obama's father's immigration file also clearly states Barack Obama being born in Hawaii. One of his high school teachers, who was acquainted with his mother at the time, remembered the day of his birth.
Obama's parents were divorced in 1964. He attended kindergarten in 1966–1967 at Noelani Elementary School
Noelani Elementary School
Noelani Elementary School is a public elementary school located in Honolulu, Hawaii.-Basic information:Noelani is nestled in Mānoa Valley, a very old and established community. The school's address is 2655 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822. The school has grown from a one building school in...
in Honolulu. In 1967, his mother married Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n student Lolo Soetoro
Lolo Soetoro
Lolo Soetoro, also known as Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo or Mangundikardjo, was the Indonesian stepfather of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America.-Early life and education:...
, who was also attending the University of Hawaii, and the family moved to Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, where they remained until Obama was ten years old. Obama then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham and has resided continuously in the United States since 1971.
Origins of the claims
During the Democratic PartyDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
's 2008 presidential primaries
Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008
The 2008 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election...
, anonymous e-mails from supporters of Hillary Clinton surfaced that questioned Obama's citizenship in an attempt to revive Clinton's faltering primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
campaign. These and numerous other chain e-mails during the subsequent presidential election circulated false rumors about Obama's origin, religion and birth certificate.
Jim Geraghty
Jim Geraghty
Jim Geraghty is a conservative blogger and regular contributor to National Review Online and National Review. In addition to writing columns for National Review, Geraghty also blogs for National Review Online and is a former reporter for States News Service.During the 2004 US Presidential election,...
of the conservative website National Review Online may have sparked further speculation on June 9, 2008, when he asked that Obama release his birth certificate. Geraghty wrote that releasing his birth certificate could debunk several false rumors circulating on the Internet, namely: that his middle name was originally Muhammad rather than Hussein; that his mother had originally named him "Barry" rather than "Barack"; and that Barack Obama, Sr. was not his biological father, as well as the rumor that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen.
In October 2009, anonymous e-mails circulated claiming that the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
(AP) had reported Obama was "Kenyan-Born". The claims were based on an AP story that had appeared 5 years earlier in a Kenyan publication, The Standard
The Standard (Kenya)
The Standard is one of the leading newspapers in Kenya with a 20% market share. It is the oldest newspaper in the country owned by The Standard Group, which also runs the Kenya Television Network . The Standard Group is headquartered at the I&M Bank Tower in Nairobi.- History :The newspaper was...
. The rumor-checking website Snopes.com found that the headline and lead-in sentence describing Obama as born in Kenya and misspelling his first name had been added by the Kenyan newspaper; and did not appear in the story issued by the AP or in any other contemporary newspaper that picked up the AP story.
Short form, 2008
The image released on the website is a scan of a laser printed document obtained from and certified by the Hawaii Department of Health on June 6, 2007. It is a "Certification of Live Birth", sometimes referred to as a short form birth certificate. It contains less information than the longer "Certificate of Live Birth", which Hawaii no longer issues. Asked about this, Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo explained that Hawaii stopped issuing the longer "Certificate" in 2001 when their birth records were "put into electronic files for consistent reporting", and therefore Hawaii "does not have a short-form or long-form certificate". A "record of live birth", partially handwritten and partially typed, was created and submitted in 1961 when Obama was born, and is "located in a bound volume in a file cabinet on the first floor of the state Department of Health". The document was used to create the state's electronic records, and has been examined by state officials multiple times since the controversy began.
In releasing the certificate, the Obama website declared that the rumors "aren't actually about that piece of paper — they're about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen". The campaign also provided the Daily Kos
Daily Kos
Daily Kos is an American political blog that publishes news and opinions from a progressive point of view. It functions as a discussion forum and group blog for a variety of netroots activists, whose efforts are primarily directed toward influencing and strengthening the Democratic Party...
blog with a copy of the document. Referring to this release, National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
columnist Jim Geraghty, wrote on June 12, 2008:
Frequent arguments of those questioning Obama's eligibility related to the fact that he did not originally release a copy of his "original" or "long form" birth certificate, but rather "short form" version that did not include all of the information given on 1961 Hawaii-issued birth certificates. It was claimed that the use of the term "certification of live birth" on the first document means it is not equivalent to a "birth certificate". These arguments have been debunked numerous times by media investigations, every judicial forum that has addressed the matter, and Hawaiian government officials—a consensus of whom have concluded that the certificate released by the Obama campaign is indeed his official birth certificate. The director of the state Department of Human Health confirmed that the state "has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". The short form is "prima facie
Prima facie
Prima facie is a Latin expression meaning on its first encounter, first blush, or at first sight. The literal translation would be "at first face", from the feminine form of primus and facies , both in the ablative case. It is used in modern legal English to signify that on first examination, a...
evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding".
Rejection by conspiracy theorists
The release of the certificate in 2008 resulted in a fresh round of questions. It was asserted that the certificate had been digitally forged with Adobe PhotoshopAdobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
and lacked a stamped seal of the state, which led them to demand that Obama release his "original" 1961 birth certificate. Jerome Corsi
Jerome Corsi
Jerome Robert Corsi is an American author, political commentator and conspiracy theorist best known for his two New York Times bestselling books: The Obama Nation and Unfit for Command...
, author of the book The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, told Fox News that "the campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website... it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce." This view was rejected by the state authorities, the media and independent fact-checking organizations. FactCheck.org viewed the Obama campaign's hard copy of the candidate's Certification of Live Birth and concluded:
Hawaii Department of Health response
The director of Hawaii's Department of Health, Chiyome Fukino, issued a statement confirming that the state held Obama's "original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". Noting "there have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate", Fukino explained that the department was prohibited by state law from releasing it to "persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record." She stated: "No state official, including Gov. Linda LingleLinda Lingle
Linda Lingle was the sixth Governor of Hawaii. Lingle holds a number of distinctions: first Republican elected governor of Hawaii since the departure of William F...
, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii."
According to TVNewser, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
's researchers stated in 2009 that the original birth certificate no longer existed, as Hawaii discarded all paper birth records in 2001, and the certification of live birth was the official copy. Contradicting this report, Janice Okubo, public information officer for the Hawaii DOH, said "We don't destroy vital records." The Health Department's director emphasized the assertion:
Joshua Wisch, a spokesman for the Hawaii attorney general's office, stated in 2011 that the original "long form" birth certificate — described by Hawaiian officials as a "record of live birth" kept in the archives of the Hawaii Department of Health is "... a Department of Health record and it can't be released to anybody", including President Obama. Wisch added that state law does not authorize photocopying such records.
Long form, 2011
On April 22, 2011, Obama asked Loretta Fuddy, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, for certified copies of his original Certificate of Live Birth ("long-form birth certificate"). Accompanying the letter was a written request from Judith Corley, Obama's personal counsel, requesting a waiver of the department's policy on computer-generated certificates. Corley stated that granting the waiver would relieve the department of the burden of repeated inquiries into the President's birth records.On April 25, 2011, Fuddy approved the request and witnessed the copying process as the health department's registrar issued the certified copies. The same day, Corley personally visited the department headquarters in Honolulu to pay the required fee on Obama's behalf, and received the two requested certified copies of the original birth certificate, an accompanying letter from Fuddy attesting to the authenticity of same, and a receipt for the processing fee. Fuddy said that she had granted the exception to its normal policy of issuing only computer-generated copies by virtue of Obama's status, in an effort to avoid ongoing requests for the birth certificate.
On April 27, White House staffers gave reporters a copy of the certificate, which they had posted on the White House website. It confirmed the details of the official short-form certificate released in 2008.
Rejection by conspiracy theorists
A claim promoted by the Drudge ReportDrudge Report
The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many...
that the newly released document was a forgery made with image editing software quickly spread on the Internet. The National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
dismissed the matter of layered components found in the White House PDF by suggesting "that whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii forgot to turn off the OCR setting
Optical character recognition
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
on the scanner." and adding "I’ve confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home."
Reaction in the African American community
Goldie Taylor, a commentator for the African American news site The GrioThe Grio
TheGrio.com is a black and African-American video news site that focuses on underrepresented stories in existing national news that are important to the African-American community....
, characterized the demand that Obama provide his birth certificate as an equivalent of making him "show his papers", as Black citizens were once required to do under Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
.
Obama's paternal step-grandmother's version of events
An incorrect but popularly reported claim is that his father's stepmother, Sarah Obama, told Anabaptist Bishop Ron McRae in a recorded transatlantic telephone conversation that she was present when Obama was born in Kenya.The McClatchy newspapers
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 30 daily newspapers in 15 states and has an average weekday circulation of 2.2 million and Sunday circulation of 2.8 million...
gave an explanation of how the story about Obama's step-grandmother began. The tape is cut off in the middle of the conversation, before the passage in which she clarifies her meaning: "'Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America,' the translator says after talking to the woman. ... Another response later says, 'Obama in Hawaii. Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii.'"
Sarah Obama shed more light on the controversy in a 2007 interview with the Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
. In the interview, Obama's paternal step grandmother stated that six months after Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham were married, she received a letter at her home in Kenya announcing the birth of Barack Obama II, who was born August 4, 1961.
Fake Kenyan birth certificate
On August 2, 2009, Orly TaitzOrly Taitz
Orly Taitz is an American dentist, lawyer, former real estate agent, and leading figure in the "birther" movement, which challenges whether Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as President of the United States...
released and attached to court documents a purported Kenyan birth certificate which she said, if authenticated and shown to be genuine, would significantly narrow and shorten the discovery and pre-trial litigation period in the Keyes v. Bowen lawsuit. Legal documents submitted describe the document as an "unauthenticated color photocopy of certified copy of registration of birth".
The document was almost immediately revealed to be a forgery. It purports to have been issued by the "Republic of Kenya", when in fact, such a state did not yet exist at the time of Obama's birth as indicated on the document (Kenya was a British Colony
Kenya Colony
The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya was part of the British Empire in Africa. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British crown colony in 1920...
until 1963).
Subsequently, evidence was unearthed that the alleged Kenyan birth certificate is a modified version of a 1959 Australian birth certificate found on an online genealogy website.
The Washington Independent
Center for Independent Media
The American Independent News Network, formerly The Center for Independent Media until January 2010, is an American 501 non-profit founded in May 2006 with the stated mission of funding websites that report news from an independent, investigative perspective...
website cited an anonymous blogger as having taken credit for the forgery and posting four photos substantiating the claim.
Examples of actual 1961 Kenyan birth certificates have also been revealed, which look substantially different from the document Taitz submitted to the court.
Not born in Hawaii
Despite the existence of Obama's Hawaii certification of live birth, Lieutenant Colonel Terry Lakin's attorney, among others, have claimed that anyone, including foreign-born children, could acquire a Hawaiian certification of live birth, and so Obama's possession of such a certificate does not prove that he was born in Hawaii. However, the suggestion that this could have applied to Obama was rejected by Janice Okubo, director of communications for the Hawaii Department of Health: "If you were born in Bali, for example, you could get a certificate from the state of Hawaii saying you were born in Bali. You could not get a certificate saying you were born in Honolulu. The state has to verify a fact like that for it to appear on the certificate". Another fact that refutes this specific claim is that the law allowing foreign-born children to obtain Hawaiian birth certificates did not exist until 20 years after Obama was born, while Obama’s published birth certificate says his birth information was recorded four days after his birth in 1961, and explicitly states that he was born in Honolulu.Additionally, some people claim that the information in the birth certificate only has to be based on the testimony of one parent.
On July 27, 2009, Fukino issued a statement explicitly stating she has "seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."
Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo elaborated on state policy for the release of vital records: "If someone from Obama's campaign gave us permission in person and presented some kind of verification that he or she was Obama's designee, we could release the vital record."
A hospital spokesperson at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children has said that their standard procedure is to neither confirm nor deny Obama was born there, "even though all the information out there says he was born at Kapiolani Hospital", citing federal privacy laws.
In 1961, birth notices for Barack Obama were published in both the Honolulu Advertiser
Honolulu Advertiser
The Honolulu Advertiser was a daily newspaper published in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the largest daily newspaper in the American state of Hawaii. It published daily with special Sunday and Internet editions...
and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii...
on August 13 and August 14, 1961, respectively, listing the home address of Obama's parents as 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu. On November 9, 2008, in response to the persistent rumors, the Advertiser posted on its web site a screenshot of the announcement taken from its microfilmed archives. Such notices were sent to newspapers routinely by the Hawaii Department of Health.
In an editorial published on July 29, 2009, the Star-Bulletin pointed out that both newspapers' vital-statistics columns are available on microfilm in the main state library. "Were the state Department of Health and Obama's parents really in cahoots to give false information to the newspapers, perhaps intending to clear the way for the baby to someday be elected president of the United States?" the newspaper asked.
Lost U.S. citizenship
It has been suggested that Obama obtained Indonesian citizenship (and thus may have lost U.S. citizenship) when he lived there as a child. As an attempt to prove that Obama was no longer a U.S. citizen (or held dual citizenship), some claim his 1981 trip to Pakistan took place at a time when there was supposedly a ban on United States passport holders entering that country, which would in turn have required him to use a non-U.S. passport.There was in fact no such ban; a New York Times article and U.S. State Department travel advisories from 1981 make it clear that travel to Pakistan by U.S. passport holders was legal at that time.
Disputes over "natural-born citizen" requirements
Another theory of Obama's ineligibility is that, regardless of his place of birth, he does not meet the constitutional definition of a natural-born citizenNatural-born citizen
Status as a natural-born citizen of the United States is one of the eligibility requirements established in the United States Constitution for election to the office of President or Vice President...
.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...." According to law professor Gabriel J. Chin
Gabriel J. Chin
Gabriel Jack Chin is an author, legal scholar, and Professor at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Chin is the Chester H. Smith Professor of Law and co-director of the Program in Criminal Law and Policy at the James E. Rogers College of Law, and Professor at the School of...
, "there is agreement that 'natural born citizens' include those made citizens by birth under the 14th Amendment."
Despite this agreement, two similar but distinct theories nonetheless contend Obama, although born in Hawaii, does not qualify as a "natural-born citizen":
Parental citizenship
Some campaigners, such as Leo Donofrio, contend that, in order for a person to be a natural-born citizen within the meaning of Article II, Section 1, it is necessary that both parents be U.S. citizens at the time of that person's birth. Those who subscribe to this theory argue that since Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, Obama could not have been a natural-born citizen, and is therefore ineligible to be President of the United States.Andrew Malcolm, of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, has argued that Obama would be eligible for the presidency, because his mother was an American citizen, irrespective of where he was born, saying that Obama's mother "could have been on Mars when wee Barry emerged and he'd still be American." According to UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
Law Professor Eugene Volokh
Eugene Volokh
Eugene Volokh is an American legal commentator and the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law...
, in the hypothetical scenario that Obama was born outside the U.S., he would not be a natural-born citizen since the then-applicable law would have required Obama's mother to have been in the U.S. at least "five years after the age of 14", but Ann Dunham was three months shy of her 19th birthday when Obama was born.
Dual citizenship
Donofrio also claimed that a person cannot be a natural-born citizen if he is a dual citizen at birth. Those who subscribe to this theory argue that because Obama's father held Citizenship of the UK and colonies, and not U.S. citizenship, at the time Obama was born, Obama was born a dual citizen and therefore was not a natural-born citizen.In August 2008, the Rocky Mountain News
Rocky Mountain News
The Rocky Mountain News was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As of March 2006, the Monday-Friday circulation was 255,427...
ran an online article asserting that Obama is both a U.S. and a Kenyan citizen. This turned out to be incorrect according to FactCheck.org, which noted that Obama was indeed born a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) under British law, by virtue of his descent from a Kenyan father at a time when Kenya was a British colony, but lost CUKC citizenship and became a Kenyan citizen when that country gained independence in 1963. However, Kenya's constitution prohibits dual citizenship in adulthood. Obama therefore automatically lost his Kenyan citizenship on his 23rd birthday, in 1984, by failing to formally renounce any non-Kenyan citizenship and swear an oath of allegiance to Kenya. Although the paper apologized for the error and published a correction, the article continued to provide fuel for online rumors about Obama's eligibility for the presidency.
Campaigners and proponents
Philip J. Berg
Philip J. Berg is an American activist attorney who brought a RICO lawsuit charging president George W. Bush and 154 others with complicity in the 9/11 attacks, and another suit challenging the eligibility of Barack Obama to become President of the United States.-Activism:Berg has involved himself...
, a Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
attorney and 9/11 conspiracy theorist
9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories are theories that disagree with the widely accepted account that the September 11 attacks were perpetrated solely by al-Qaeda. These theories arose because of what proponents of the conspiracy theories believe to be inconsistencies in the official conclusions or some...
. Berg describes himself as a "moderate to liberal" Democrat who backed Hillary Clinton for president. Another notable advocate is Alan Keyes
Alan Keyes
Alan Lee Keyes is an American conservative political activist, author, former diplomat, and perennial candidate for public office. A doctoral graduate of Harvard University, Keyes began his diplomatic career in the U.S...
, who was defeated by Obama in the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate election, served as a diplomat in the Reagan administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
, and is currently a media personality and self described "conservative political activist".
Orly Taitz
Orly Taitz
Orly Taitz is an American dentist, lawyer, former real estate agent, and leading figure in the "birther" movement, which challenges whether Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as President of the United States...
, a California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
dentist and attorney who emigrated from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, then to the United States, and holds dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship, has been called the "queen bee of the birthers", because she is often seen as the face of the movement.
Other notable advocates include Andy Martin, a perennial candidate
Perennial candidate
A perennial candidate is one who frequently runs for public office with a record of success that is infrequent, if existent at all. Perennial candidates are often either members of minority political parties or have political opinions that are not mainstream. They may run without any serious hope...
who was "widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign" that Obama is a secret Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
, and Robert L. Schulz, a tax protester
Tax protester (United States)
A tax protester is someone who refuses to pay a tax on constitutional or legal grounds, typically because he or she believes that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid...
and activist who placed full-page advertisements in the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
in December 2008 arguing that Obama had been born in Kenya or had subsequently renounced U.S. citizenship. In December 2008, Alex Koppelman, a senior writer for Salon, characterized nearly all of the prominent people promoting the story Obama was not qualified to be president, including Jerome Corsi, Philip Berg, Andy Martin and Robert Schultz as having a "history of conspiracist thought".
The Constitution Party
Constitution Party (United States)
The Constitution Party is a paleoconservative political party in the United States. It was founded as the U.S. Taxpayers' Party by Howard Philips in 1991. Phillips was the party's candidate in the 1992, 1996 and 2000 presidential elections...
, a dominionist third party
Third party (United States)
The term third party is used in the United States for any and all political parties in the United States other than one of the two major parties . The term can also refer to independent politicians not affiliated with any party at all and to write-in candidates.The United States has had a...
, also campaigned for release of Obama's original long-form certificate.
The website AmericaMustKnow.com encouraged visitors to lobby members of the Electoral College to vote against Obama's confirmation as President and become faithless electors. Electors around the country received numerous letters and e-mails contending that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery and that he was born in Kenya, and requesting that Obama be denied the presidency.
Some of the online campaigners coordinated their efforts with weekly conference calls, in which they discussed the latest news and how to advance the story.
The campaign has also been supported by the WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is an American web site that publishes news and associated content from a U.S. conservative perspective. It was founded in May 1997 by Joseph Farah with the stated intent of "exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power" and is headquartered in Washington, D.C.-History:In...
(WND) website, which sponsored a letter-writing campaign to the Supreme Court. WNDs publisher Joseph Farah
Joseph Farah
-External links:* Official website* *...
has written a number of editorials arguing that Obama's eligibility needs to be confirmed. WND has mounted an advertising campaign, using electronic billboards to ask "Where's The Birth Certificate?".
The talk radio hosts Michael Savage
Michael Savage (commentator)
Michael Savage is a conservative American radio host, author, and political commentator. He is the host of The Savage Nation, a nationally syndicated talk show that airs throughout the United States on Talk Radio Network...
, G. Gordon Liddy
G. Gordon Liddy
George Gordon Liddy was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed from July–September 1971, during Richard Nixon's presidency. Separately, along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the Watergate burglaries of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in...
, Brian Sussman
Brian Sussman
Brian Sussman is an American Emmy Award-winning television journalist and conservative talk radio host in the San Francisco Bay area. He currently hosts the Morning Show on radio station KSFO.- Personal background :...
, Lars Larson
Lars Larson
Lars Larson is a conservative U.S. talk radio show host based in Oregon. Larson hosts a national talk radio show, which as of 2009 is syndicated by Compass Media Networks...
, Bob Grant
Bob Grant (radio)
Bob Grant , is an American radio host whose real name is Robert Ciro Gigante. A veteran of broadcasting in New York City, Grant is considered a pioneer of the "conservative" and "confrontational" talk radio format.-Early work:...
, Jim Quinn
Jim Quinn
Jim Quinn is an American radio talk show host based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His program, The War Room with Quinn and Rose, is aired on 12 stations across the U.S. and is also heard on XM Satellite Radio Channel 166 from 6–9 a.m...
, Rose Tennent
The War Room with Quinn and Rose
Quinn and Rose is a conservative political talk show. It is syndicated, by Clear Channel Radio from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The show is done by Jim Quinn with "color commentary" from a woman known as Radio Rose . It is broadcast from 6 A.M. to 9 A.M., while some affiliates replay the first hour...
, Barbara Simpson
Barbara Simpson
-Coast to Coast AM and KSFO :Simpson was a fairly prominent television news anchor in San Francisco and Los Angeles from about the late 1970s through the 1990s, but is most notable as the host of Coast to Coast AM on Saturday nights from about 2000 until about 2003, alternating with George Noory;...
, Mark Davis
Mark Davis (talk show host)
Mark Davis is an American radio host, newspaper columnist, and political commentator. His local talk show, The Mark Davis Show, airs on weekdays from 8:30 AM to 11 AM on WBAP in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, and his popular column is published in The Dallas Morning News...
, and Fred Grandy
Fred Grandy
Fredrick Lawrence "Fred" Grandy is a former actor best known for his role as 'Gopher' on the sitcom The Love Boat and who later became a member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Iowa...
have all promoted the ineligibility claims on their radio shows. Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
, Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
and Lou Dobbs
Lou Dobbs
Louis Carl "Lou" Dobbs is an American journalist, radio host, television host on the Fox Business Network, and author. He anchored CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight until November 2009 when he announced on the air that he would leave the 24-hour cable news television network.He was born in Texas and lived...
have also broached the issue several times on their shows. Savage, during an episode of his nationally syndicated radio show Savage Nation, said that "We're getting ready for the Communist takeover of America with a noncitizen at the helm."
Some celebrities have promoted or touched upon the ineligibility claims, as well. In August 2009, actor Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris
Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris is an American martial artist and actor. After serving in the United States Air Force, he began his rise to fame as a martial artist and has since founded his own school, Chun Kuk Do...
, while not embracing the eligibility claims, wrote an open letter
Open letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
to Obama urging that he officially release his "original birth certificate", saying, "Refusing to post your original birth certificate is an unwise political and leadership decision that is enabling the 'birther' controversy." In December 2010, Baltimore Orioles
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles are a professional baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. They are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's American League. One of the American League's eight charter franchises in 1901, it spent its first year as a major league...
baseball player Luke Scott asserted in a Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
interview that Obama "was not born here" and that his birth certificate was never released. The Huffington Post reported that, in April 2011 during his stage show, Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen
Carlos Irwin Estevez , better known by his stage name Charlie Sheen, is an American film and television actor. He is the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen....
said, "For starters, I was fucking born here, how about that? And I got proof! Nothing photoshopped about my birth certificate."
The anti-Obama campaigners have not, however, been unanimous in their approach. For example, WorldNetDaily has been critical of Philip Berg's forgery claims, saying that a "WND investigation into Obama's [short form] birth certificate utilizing forgery experts ... found the document to be authentic". At the same time, WND has been urging Obama to release his original long-form certificate, and contends that "Hawaii at the time of Obama's birth allowed births that took place in foreign countries to be registered in Hawaii", ignoring the fact that a birth certificate issued in such circumstances would list the actual place of birth, not a Hawaiian location such as Honolulu. A subsequent WND article seemed to backtrack on the earlier one, saying of the experts it had quoted earlier that "None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery."
According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
, "the birther movement has gained a large following on the radical right ... it has been adopted by the most noxious elements out there". Some of those "noxious elements" include a number of avowed white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.
James von Brunn, an avowed white supremacist charged as the gunman in the June 10, 2009, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting was a shooting at that nation's memorial to The Holocaust in Washington, D.C. on June 10, 2009, at 12:50 p.m. Security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, was shot, and later died from his injuries. Suspect James Wenneker von Brunn, 88, was charged...
, had previously posted messages to the Internet accusing Obama and the media of hiding documents about his life.
Richard Shelby
In February 2009, a local Alabama newspaper reported that at a town hall meeting Senator Richard ShelbyRichard Shelby
Richard Craig Shelby is the senior U.S. Senator from Alabama. First elected to the Senate in 1986, he is the ranking member of the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and was its chairman from 2003 to 2007....
was asked if there was any truth to the rumors that Obama was not a natural-born citizen. According to the paper, Shelby responded that "Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate."
A Shelby spokesperson denied the story, but the newspaper stood by it.
Roy Blunt
On July 28, 2009, Mike StarkMike Stark
Mike Stark is an American reporter, blogger, political activist, and graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. His work often appears at StarkReports.com, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos and several other group-blogs...
approached Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt
Roy Blunt
Roy D. Blunt is the junior United States Senator from Missouri. He is a member of the Republican Party. His Senate seat was previously held by Republican Kit Bond, until his retirement....
asking him about the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Blunt responded: "What I don’t know is why the President can’t produce a birth certificate. I don’t know anybody else that can’t produce one. And I think that’s a legitimate question. No health records, no birth certificate." Blunt's spokesperson later claimed that the quote was taken out of context.
Jean Schmidt
After giving a speech at the Voice of America Freedom Rally in West Chester, OhioWest Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio
West Chester Township, formerly known as Union Township, is a township located in the southeast corner of Butler County in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, one of thirteen townships in the county. It is situated between Sharonville and Monroe, about 18 miles north of Cincinnati, and...
on September 5, 2009, Republican congresswoman Jean Schmidt
Jean Schmidt
Jeannette Marie Hoffman Schmidt, is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2005. She is a member of the Republican Party. The district stretches from eastern Cincinnati to Portsmouth....
replied to a woman who commented that Obama was ineligible for the Presidency, "I agree with you. But the courts don't." Schmidt's office subsequently responded that a video clip of this comment was "taken out of context", and reiterated that her stated position is that Obama is a citizen.
She had earlier voted to certify the Electoral College vote affirming his presidency, and had said she believes Obama is a U.S. citizen. The statement was issued in response to a July 28, 2009, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
video in which Schmidt was seen running away from Mike Stark
Mike Stark
Mike Stark is an American reporter, blogger, political activist, and graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. His work often appears at StarkReports.com, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos and several other group-blogs...
when he asked whether or not she had any questions about President Obama's citizenship status.
Nathan Deal
In November 2009, then-Representative Nathan DealNathan Deal
John Nathan Deal is a United States politician, the 82nd and current Governor of Georgia. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1992 but switched to the Republican Party in 1995...
replied to a question about whether he believed that Obama "is a native-born American citizen who is eligible to serve as president" with a statement that "I am joining several of my colleagues in the House in writing a letter to the President asking that he release a copy of his birth certificate so we can have an answer to this question." Contrasting the differing fates of Deal, who won the 2010 gubernatorial election
Georgia gubernatorial election, 2010
The 2010 Georgia gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 2010. Incumbent Republican Governor Sonny Perdue was term-limited and unable to seek re-election. Primary elections for the Republican and Democratic parties took place on July 20, with a Republican runoff on August 10. The...
, and former Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia Ann McKinney is a former US Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President of the United States...
, who lost her primary after endorsing 9/11 conspiracy theories, David Weigel
David Weigel
David "Dave" Weigel , is an American journalist, currently working for Slate magazine and MSNBC. Weigel began appearing on MSNBC in 2009, accepting a position as a paid contributor in June 2010...
of Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
noted: "Dipping a toe into the birtherism fever swamp didn't stop Deal from winning a statewide primary."
Sarah Palin
During a December 3, 2009 interview on Rusty HumphriesRusty Humphries
Ralph E. "Rusty" Humphries is an American radio host, conservative political commentator, and songwriter. Humphries' nationally-syndicated radio show, The Rusty Humphries Show, based in Atlanta, Georgia, airs on over 250 stations through Talk Radio Network.-Career:Humphries has hosted as a...
' radio talk show, Humphries asked Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
if she would make Barack Obama's birth certificate a campaign issue in 2012, should she decide to run. Palin responded, "I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers." Humphries followed up, asking whether she thinks Obama's birth certificate is a fair question to be looking at. Palin answered, "I think it's a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records—all of that is fair game. The McCain–Palin campaign didn't do a good enough job in that area."
After news organizations and blogs picked up the quotation and associated Palin's comments with the "birther" movement, Palin issued a statement on her Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
page in which she clarified that she meant to say that voters have the right to ask questions, and she herself has never asked Obama to produce a birth certificate. She then went on to compare questioning of Obama's birth certificate to questions that were raised during the 2008 presidential elections about her maternity
Maternity
Maternity or motherhood is the social and legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a mother and her child.It is specially related with the protection of the baby and the mother within and after the childbirth.-See also:...
to her son, Trig. The linkage between the question whether Trig is her son to Barack Obama's birth certificate issues has been heavily criticized by Mark Milian of the Los Angeles Times. In addition, Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
, an established skeptic of Palin's relationship with Trig, wrote in response to her comments: "Palin has never produced Trig's birth certificate or a single piece of objective medical evidence that proves he is indeed her biological son."
Tracey Mann
Tracey Mann, a candidate running for Congress from Kansas in 2010, stated at a candidate forum that Obama "should show his birth certificate to really resolve this thing one way or another". In a radio interview, he answered a question as "I think the president of the United States needs to come forth with his papers and show everyone that he's an American citizen and put this issue to bed once and for all." In response, on July 21, 2010, The Hutchinson NewsThe Hutchinson News
The Hutchinson News is a daily newspaper serving the city of Hutchinson, Kansas in the United States. The publication was awarded the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service "for its courageous and constructive campaign, culminating in 1964, to bring about more equitable reapportionment of the...
, a local paper in Hutchinson, Kansas
Hutchinson, Kansas
Hutchinson is the largest city in and the county seat of Reno County, Kansas, United States, northwest of Wichita, on the Arkansas River. It has been home to salt mines since 1887, thus its nickname of "Salt City", but locals call it "Hutch"...
, withdrew their endorsement of Mann, saying that Mann "questions the citizenship of President Barack Obama despite evidence that is irrefutable to most objective, rational people – including a birth certificate released by the Hawaii secretary of state and birth announcements printed in Honolulu's two major newspapers". Mann responded that he was "disappointed and mystified by the Hutchinson News decision to withdraw their endorsement over a misunderstanding of [his] position", as he is not "interested in pursuing this issue in Congress", and he has "never had any interest in spending any time on the matter". Mann was subsequently defeated in the Republican primary by state senator Tim Huelskamp
Tim Huelskamp
Timothy Alan Huelskamp is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party . He represented the 38th District in the Kansas Senate from 1997 until entering Congress.-Early life, education, and career:...
.
David Vitter
At a townhall meeting in Metairie, LouisianaMetairie, Louisiana
Metairie is a census-designated place in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States and is a major part of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area. Metairie is the largest community in Jefferson Parish. It is an unincorporated area that would be larger than most of the state's cities if it were...
on July 11, 2010, Senator David Vitter
David Vitter
David Vitter is the junior United States Senator from Louisiana and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, he served in the United States House of Representatives, representing the suburban Louisiana's 1st congressional district. He served as a member of the Louisiana House of...
responded to a question about Barack Obama's birth certificate saying "I personally don't have standing to bring litigation in court, but I support conservative legal organizations and others who would bring that to court. I think that is the valid and most possibly effective grounds to do it." His campaign did not provide any additional comments on the matter.
Newt Gingrich
On September 11, 2010, former Speaker of the HouseSpeaker of the United States House of Representatives
The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...
Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich
Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich is a U.S. Republican Party politician who served as the House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995 and as the 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999....
stated that Obama could only be understood by people who "understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior". While Gingrich did not define what constitutes "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior", White House Press Secretary
White House Press Secretary
The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....
Robert Gibbs
Robert Gibbs
Robert Lane Gibbs was the 28th White House Press Secretary. Gibbs was the communications director for then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Obama's 2008 presidential campaign...
accused Gingrich of "trying to appeal to the fringe of people who don't believe the president was born in this country". Gibbs went on to say, "You would normally expect better of somebody who held the position of Speaker of the House, but look, it is political season, and most people will say anything, and Newt Gingrich does that on a, genuinely, on a regular basis."
Andy Martin
In December 2010, Andy Martin (plaintiff in Martin v. Lingle and known as "King of the Birthers") announced his candidacy to seek the 2012 Republican nomination for the President of the United States. In February 2011, Martin's planned appearance at a Republican meeting in Deering, New Hampshire, was cancelled after his anti-Semitic past was discovered.Mike Huckabee
On February 28, 2011, on Steve MalzbergSteve Malzberg
Steve Malzberg is a radio personality. He most recently hosted The Steve Malzberg Show on the WOR Radio Network.A graduate of Brooklyn College, Malzberg worked at 77 WABC for over twenty-five years in several capacities, i.e., as an overnight political talk show host, a sports commentator, and...
's radio program Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee
Michael "Mike" Dale Huckabee is an American politician who served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate in the 2008 United States Republican presidential primaries, finishing second in delegate count and third in both popular vote and number of states won . He won...
, a 2008 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, falsely claimed that Obama had been raised in Kenya and that "[Obama] probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather." Huckabee, speaking on The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor, originally titled The O'Reilly Report from 1996 to 1998 and often called The Factor, is an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who often discusses current controversial political issues with guests.The program was the most watched...
, said that he misspoke and intended to say Indonesia, characterizing his own comment as a "verbal gaffe".
Michele Bachmann
In March 2011, Representative Michele BachmannMichele Bachmann
Michele Marie Bachmann is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing , a post she has held since 2007. The district includes several of the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities, such as Woodbury, and Blaine as well as Stillwater and St. Cloud.She is currently a...
told conservative radio host Jeff Katz on his program, "I'll tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for president of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate, so we can get that off the table." Previously on Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
, when asked about President Obama's origins, she replied, "Well, that isn't for me to state. That's for the president to state."
Joe Arpaio
In September 2011 Maricopa County, ArizonaMaricopa County, Arizona
-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*73.0% White*5.0% Black*2.1% Native American*3.5% Asian*0.2% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*3.5% Two or more races*12.7% Other races*29.6% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...
Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Joe Arpaio
Joseph M. "Joe" Arpaio is the elected Sheriff of Maricopa County in the U.S. state of Arizona. First voted into office in 1992, Arpaio is responsible for law enforcement in Maricopa County. This includes management of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, county jail, courtroom security,...
ordered his "cold case posse" to investigate the authenticity of Barack Obama's birth certificate, after receiving a complaint about Obama from the "Surprise Tea Party".
Donald Trump
In March 2011, during an interview on Good Morning AmericaGood Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
, Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
said he was seriously considering running for president, that he was a "little" skeptical of Obama's citizenship, and that someone who shares this view shouldn't be so quickly dismissed as an "idiot". Trump added, "Growing up no one knew him." Later, Trump appeared on The View repeating several times that "I want him (Obama) to show his birth certificate." He speculated that "there’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like", a comment which host Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
described as "the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages". On the March 30, 2011, edition of CNN Newsroom
CNN Newsroom
CNN Newsroom is an American news program on CNN/US.Broadcasting throughout the week, Newsroom features live and taped news reports, in addition to analysis from experts on the issues being covered, and headlines throughout each hour. The program tends to focus on softer news than their hard news...
, anchor Suzanne Malveaux
Suzanne Malveaux
Suzanne M. Malveaux , is an American television news reporter.She is currently the anchor of CNN Newsroom 11am to 1pm. Before that she was White House correspondent for CNN and primary substitute host on CNNs "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer"...
commented on Trump's statements, pointing out that she had made a documentary for which she had gone to Hawaii and spoken with people who knew Obama as a child. In an NBC TV interview broadcast on April 7, 2011, Trump said he would not let go of the issue, because he was not satisfied that Obama had proved his citizenship. After Trump began making his views public, he was contacted by Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, who was reportedly on the phone with Trump every day for a week, providing Trump with a "birther primer", answers to questions, and advice. After Obama released his long form birth certificate on April 27, 2011 Trump said "I am really honored and I am really proud, that I was able to do something that nobody else could do".
Political impact
John McCain presidential campaign, 2008
John McCain, the senior United States Senator from Arizona, launched his second candidacy for the presidency of the United States in an unsuccessful bid to win the 2008 presidential election. His candidacy, in the works for a number of years, was informally announced on February 28, 2007 during a...
and ultimately rejected, they became a significant issue among sections of the political right. By mid-2009, the citizenship issue was one of the hottest and most lucrative sources of fundraising for organizations on the right that raise funds through direct mail and telemarketing. Online petition sites such as that of Alan Keyes
Alan Keyes
Alan Lee Keyes is an American conservative political activist, author, former diplomat, and perennial candidate for public office. A doctoral graduate of Harvard University, Keyes began his diplomatic career in the U.S...
, who has been collecting signatures on the birth certificate issue, are a major source for generating mailing lists of movement conservatives. The web site WorldNetDaily published more than 200 articles on the subject by July 2009 and has sold billboards, bumper stickers and postcards asking "Where's the birth certificate?" and similar slogans in an effort which has "already raised tens of thousands of dollars."
Moderate conservatives have found themselves "bombarded with birther stuff". Protesters at the Tea Party protests in 2009 carried signs about the birth certificate issue, some of which were recommended by protest organizers. In an incident that attracted widespread media coverage, moderate Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Representative Michael Castle was booed and heckled during a July 2009 town hall meeting in Georgetown, Delaware
Georgetown, Delaware
Georgetown is a town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to 2010 census figures, the population of the town is 6,422, an increase of 38.3% over the previous decade...
, when he told a woman protesting about Obama's birth certificate: "if you’re referring to the president there, he is a citizen of the United States."
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...
reported that other members of Congress often hear the issue too; an anonymous congressman told the program that he was reluctant to advertise his own town hall meetings for fear of this issue drowning out everything else.
A number of Republican legislators have, proposed legislation and constitutional amendments
United States presidential eligibility legislation
Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:-Obama-era initiatives:...
at the state and federal levels to address issues raised by the birth certificate campaigners. Some Republicans are said to "want the issue to go away", seeing it as a distraction. Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
commentators have criticized the reluctance of some Republicans to distance themselves from the proponents of the conspiracy theories, suggesting that "Republican officials are reluctant to denounce the birthers for fear of alienating an energetic part of their party's base". NBC News
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
' "First Read" team commented: "the real story in all of this is that Republican Party has a HUGE problem with its base right now."
Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
Chairman Michael Steele released a statement through his spokesperson saying, "Chairman Steele believes that this is an unnecessary distraction and believes that the president is a U.S. citizen."
Conservative Joel Pollak
Joel Pollak
Joel Barry Pollak is an American politician and author. In 2010 he was the Republican nominee for U.S. Congress from Illinois's 9th congressional district, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Democrat Janice D. “Jan” Schakowsky....
, writing for The American Thinker
The American Thinker
American Thinker is a daily conservative online magazine dealing with American politics, foreign policy, national security, Israel, economics, diplomacy, culture, and military strategy. American Thinker has been mentioned in other media including Le Monde, The Guardian, Inter Press Service, Campus...
, has stated that the reason the "Birther theory" has caught on particularly among conservatives, is the weakness of the Republican opposition, stating:
Political analyst Marc Ambinder
Marc Ambinder
Marc Ambinder is an American editor and journalist. He is a White House correspondent at National Journal and is a contributing editor at The Atlantic. He previously worked at ABC News and was chief political consultant to CBS News from 2008 to 2011. For years he was the author of an influential...
of The Atlantic and CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
, suggests that the birther phenomenon goes to the heart of the dilemma now facing the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, positing that
Political analyst Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
, writing in The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, stated
Opinion surveys
In October 2008, the Orange County RegisterAs a result of the widespread publicity given to the citizenship controversy, 60% of respondents in an Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
survey carried out in November 2008 had heard of the issue. However, only 10% believed the claims that Obama was not a citizen.
An opinion poll carried out for Daily Kos
Daily Kos
Daily Kos is an American political blog that publishes news and opinions from a progressive point of view. It functions as a discussion forum and group blog for a variety of netroots activists, whose efforts are primarily directed toward influencing and strengthening the Democratic Party...
by Research 2000
Research 2000
Research 2000 is a U.S. opinion polling and marketing research company based in Olney, Maryland. It began doing research on upcoming elections in 1999 after its President, Del Ali, moved on from Mason-Dixon Political Media Research...
in July 2009 found that 77% of Americans believed that Obama was born in the U.S., while 11% didn't, and 12% were unsure. However, Republicans and Southerners were far more likely than other political or demographic groups to doubt that Obama was born in the United States. 58% of Republicans either believed that Obama was not born in the U.S. (28%) or were not sure (30%), with 42% believing that he was. An overwhelming majority of Democrats (93%) and independents (83%) believed that he was born in the U.S. Support for the belief that Obama was born outside the U.S. was strongest in the South, where only 47% of those polled believed he was born in the U.S., compared with an average of 90% of residents of the Northeast, Midwest and West. A marked racial disparity in the South was also apparent.
The Politico
The Politico
The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
Brendan Nyhan
Brendan Nyhan is an American liberal to moderate political blogger, author, and political columnist. He was born in Mountain View, California and now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.-Education:...
observed that the poll "suggests that the encouragement of the birth certificate myth by conservative pundits and Republican politicians has begun to activate the GOP base on this issue".
A Public Policy Polling
Public Policy Polling
Public Policy Polling is an American Democratic Party-affiliated polling firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina. PPP was founded in 2001 by businessman and Democratic pollster Dean Debnam, the firm's current president and chief executive officer...
survey carried out in August 2009 found that 32% of Republicans in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
thought that Obama was born in the U.S., 41% thought he was foreign-born and the remaining 27% were unsure.
In Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, an August 2009 poll carried out for the Deseret News and KSL-TV
KSL-TV
KSL-TV, virtual channel 5, is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. KSL-TV is owned by Bonneville International Corporation, which is in turn owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...
found that 67% of Utahns accepted the evidence that Obama was born in the U.S. The poll found that those who do not believe that Obama was born in the United States, or do not know, are predominantly middle-aged, lower-income Republican-leaning individuals without a college education.
A Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. The Center and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1990, Donald S...
poll found that 80% of Americans had heard about the Obama citizenship claims by August 2009. The poll found a significant partisan divide in views of the news coverage, with 58% of Democrats saying that the allegations had received too much attention from the media. Republicans were more inclined to say that the allegations had received too little attention, with 39% expressing this view against only 26% saying that the controversy had received too much attention.
In a Harris Poll online survey of 2,320 adults conducted in March 2010, 25% of the respondents said they believed that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president". In a July 2010 CNN poll of adult Americans, 16% said had doubts that Obama was born in the United States, and a further 11% were certain that he was not.
A Gallup
The Gallup Organization
The Gallup Organization, is primarily a research-based performance-management consulting company. Some of Gallup's key practice areas are - Employee Engagement, Customer Engagement and Well-Being. Gallup has over 40 offices in 27 countries. World headquarters are in Washington, D.C. Operational...
telephone poll of 1018 adults conducted in May 2011 found that 5% of respondents believed that Obama was "definitely born in another country" and 8% believed he was "probably born in another country", versus 47% believing he was "definitely" and 18% "probably" born in the US. Broken down by political affiliation, the same poll found that 23% of self-identified Republicans, 14% of independents, and 5% of Democrats thought Obama was definitely or probably born in another country.
Dilemma for Republicans
Because a significant portion of Republican voters and/or their Tea PartyTea Party movement
The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009...
supporters believe Obama is not eligible to hold public office (see Opinion surveys section), Republicans sometimes found themselves caught in a dilemma between losing support or damaging their credibility. They had "to walk the fine line of humoring conspiracy-minded supporters without explicitly questioning Obama's legitimacy..." Other Republicans, including former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty
Tim Pawlenty
Timothy James "Tim" Pawlenty , also known affectionately among supporters as T-Paw, is an American politician who served as the 39th Governor of Minnesota . He was a Republican candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election from May to August 2011...
and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum
Richard John "Rick" Santorum is a lawyer and a former United States Senator from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Santorum was the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference -making him the third-ranking Senate Republican from 2001 until his leave in 2007. Santorum is considered both a social...
, however, have plainly rejected these claims.
An example of these situations is Mike Castle, then Representative for Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
who ran in 2010 for Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...
. At a town hall meeting, Castle was confronted by birther constituents who jeered him for insisting that Obama is a citizen of the United States. Mike Castle, one of the leading Republican moderates in the House, was later defeated by Tea Party
Tea Party movement
The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009...
-backed Christine O'Donnell
Christine O'Donnell
Christine Therese O'Donnell is an American Republican Party politician who founded two advocacy organizations. She has been an advocate for nonprofit clients and nonprofit causes for nearly 20 years. A Tea Party favorite, and with strong financial support from the Tea Party movement, she defeated...
in Republican primary, who herself later lost
United States Senate special election in Delaware, 2010
The 2010 United States Senate special election in Delaware took place on November 2, 2010 concurrently with elections to the United States Senate in other states as well as elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. It was a special election to...
the general election to Democratic nominee Chris Coons.
Commentary and criticism
Joseph Farah
-External links:* Official website* *...
said the authenticity of the birth certificate image was under serious question. Following criticism from the media, Farah defended his apparent reversal saying WNDs August 2008 report had been based on the best information available at the time, and the real issue was not the "veracity of the image", rather it was that information was missing such as the location of the birth and the name of the delivery physician.
Proponents of claims doubting Obama's eligibility have been dubbed "birthers" by their critics, who have drawn a parallel with 9/11 conspiracy theorists
9/11 Truth Movement
9/11 Truth movement is a collective name for loosely affiliated organizations and individuals who question the accepted account of the September 11, 2001, attacks....
or "truthers". Leslie Savan of The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
has compared the so-called "birthers" to other groups as well, including those who deny the moon landing, the Holocaust
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
or global warming
Global warming controversy
Global warming controversy refers to a variety of disputes, significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature, regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming...
; "Teabaggers who refuse to believe they must pay taxes" and creationists who believe the earth is 6,000 years old. MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
political commentator Rachel Maddow
Rachel Maddow
Rachel Anne Maddow is an American television host and political commentator. Maddow hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC. Her syndicated talk radio program, The Rachel Maddow Show, aired on Air America Radio...
has defined a "birther" as: Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is an American conservative blogger, political commentator, and author. Her weekly syndicated column appears in a number of newspapers and websites. She is a Fox News Channel contributor and has been a guest on MSNBC, C-SPAN, and national radio programs...
has said trutherism exists on both the left and the right, and has described its persistence: "The plain truth will never mollify a Truther. There’s always a convoluted excuse – some inconsequential discrepancy to seize on, some photographic "evidence" to magnify into a blur of meaningless pixels – that will rationalize irrationality".
A number of conservative commentators including Malkin have criticized the birth-certificate theorists and their effect on the wider conservative movement. In late 2008, Malkin said a "dangerously large segment" of "birth certificate hunters" had "lurched into rabid Truther territory". She also opined there may be a "seed of a legitimate constitutional issue" related to enforcing the citizenship requirement for presidential candidates. Talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
host Michael Medved
Michael Medved
Michael Medved is an American radio host, author, political commentator and film critic. His Seattle, Washington-based nationally syndicated talk show, The Michael Medved Show, airs throughout the U.S...
, has also attacked Obama birth-certificate theorists, calling them "the worst enemy of the conservative movement" for making other conservatives "look sick, troubled and not suitable for civilized company." Conservative columnist Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
has referred to the birthers as "just a few cranks." Paleoconservative pundit Steve Sailer
Steve Sailer
Steven Ernest Sailer is an American journalist and movie critic for The American Conservative, a blogger, a VDARE.com columnist, and a former correspondent for UPI. He writes about race relations, gender issues, politics, immigration, IQ, genetics, movies, and sports.-Personal life:Sailer grew up...
has dismissed the theory saying, "Of course he was born in Hawaii ... The idea that his heavily pregnant mother ... would get on an early 707 and fly at great expense to some foreign country is ridiculous – especially the popular theory that he was born in Kenya. Do you know how many different flights she would have had to take to get to Kenya in 1961?"
An editorial in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii...
dismissed the claims about Obama's eligibility as proposing "a vast conspiracy involving Obama's parents, state officials, the news media, the Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
, think-tanks and a host of yet-to-be-uncovered others who have connived since Obama's birth to build a false record so that he could eventually seek the presidency 47 years later." The St. Petersburg Times'
St. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...
fact-checking website, PolitiFact.com, concluded its series of article on the birth certificate issue by saying:
In November 2008, commentator and social critic Camille Paglia
Camille Paglia
Camille Anna Paglia , is an American author, teacher, and social critic. Paglia, a self-described dissident feminist, has been a Professor at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984...
criticized the birther's "blathering, fanatical overkill" but also questioned Obama's response: "Obama could have ended the entire matter months ago by publicly requesting Hawaii to issue a fresh, long-form, stamped certificate and inviting a few high-profile reporters in to examine the document and photograph it", she said. A parenthetical in the same article noted that "(The campaign did make the "short-form" certificate available to Factcheck.org)".
Factcheck.org noted, "The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department."
Writing in December 2008, Alex Koppelman discussed the validity of the common argument – that Obama should release a copy of his full, original certificate and the rumors and doubts would disappear. Conspiracy theory experts told Koppelman that when committed conspiracists are presented with more data debunking their theory, they refuse to accept the new evidence. "Whatever can't be ignored can be twisted to fit into the narrative; every new disclosure of something that should, by rights, end the controversy only opens up new questions, identifies new plotters", he wrote. Because Obama's release of the short-form had only "stoked the fever of conspiracy mongers", Koppleman predicted that releasing the long-form certificate "would almost certainly" continue the rumor cycle.
In response to the notion that Obama's grandparents might have planted a birth announcement in newspapers just so their grandson could some day be president, FactCheck suggested that "those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat." Brooks Jackson, the director of FactCheck, comments that "it all reflects a surge of paranoid distress among people who don't like Barack Obama" and who want the election results to go away. Chip Berlet
Chip Berlet
John Foster "Chip" Berlet is an American investigative journalist, and photojournalist activist specializing in the study of right-wing movements in the United States, particularly the religious right, white supremacists, homophobic groups, and paramilitary organizations...
, a journalist who has studied the spread of conspiracy theories, notes "For some people, when their side loses an election, the only explanation that makes sense to them – that they can cope with – is that sinister, bad, evil people arranged some kind of fraud." American political writer Dana Milbank
Dana Milbank
-Biography:He is a graduate of Yale University, where he was a member of Trumbull College, the Progressive Party of the Yale Political Union and the secret society Skull and Bones. He is a graduate of Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick, New York...
, writing for the Washington Post, describes the Obama citizenship theories of Bob Schulz (chairman of the We the People Foundation
We the People Foundation
We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education, Inc. also known as We the People Foundation is a non-profit education and research organization in Queensbury, New York with the declared mission "to protect and defend individual Rights as guaranteed by the Constitutions of the United States."...
, which in 2008 publicly challenged Obama's citizenship) as "hysteria". Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
elector Camilla Auger, responding to lobbying of members of the state's electoral college, commented: "I was concerned that there are that many nutty people in the country making depressing, absurd allegations."
Some commentators have asserted that racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
is a factor motivating the promotion of Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. J. Richard Cohen, the President of the Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
, an organization that monitors hate groups and extremism, wrote an e-mail to supporters in July 2009 declaring: "This conspiracy theory was concocted by an anti-Semite and circulated by racist extremists who cannot accept the fact that a black man has been elected president." An academic psychologist commented that a study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology is a scientific journal covering Psychology published by Elsevier, and is distributed as part of dues to the membership of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology...
supported a conclusion that racism played a role in the birther movement. Donald Trump's questioning how Obama gained admission to two Ivy-League institutions, as well as his comment, "I have a great relationship with the blacks," led David Remnick
David Remnick
David Remnick is an American journalist, writer, and magazine editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998. He was named "Editor of the Year" by Advertising Age in 2000...
, David Letterman
David Letterman
David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...
, and Bill Maher
Bill Maher
William "Bill" Maher, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and...
, among others, to accuse Trump of racism, and an increased attention on race with respect to Obama. In April, 2011 Marilyn Davenport, a Tea Party activist and member of the executive committee of the Republican Party's local Orange County, California
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
created a nationwide controversy when she circulated a photograph by email, widely seen as racist, that had been edited to depict Barack Obama as the child of two chimpanzees, and to which she had added the caption, "Now you know why no birth certificate". The party chapter censured her and asked her to resign, but she refused. Following the release of Obama's long form certificate later that month, The New York Times remarked in an editorial that, "It is inconceivable that this campaign to portray Mr. Obama as the insidious 'other' would have been conducted against a white president."
Legislation and litigation
The controversy over Obama's citizenship and eligibility for the presidency has prompted a number of Republican state and federal legislators to propose legislation aimed at requiring future presidential candidates to release copies of their birth certificates. Some legislators also lent their support to birth certificate-related litigation against Obama, joining as co-plaintiffs.Although Obama was confirmed as president-elect by Congress on January 8, 2009, and sworn in as President on January 20, litigation continued into his presidency. Numerous individuals and groups have filed state or federal lawsuits seeking to have Obama disqualified from standing or being confirmed for the Presidency, or to compel him to release additional documentation relating to his citizenship. By mid-December 2008, at least 17 lawsuits had been filed challenging Obama's eligibility in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey, Texas and Washington. No such suit had resulted in the grant of any relief to the plaintiffs by any court. All of the cases have been rejected in lower courts. Three post-election suits were dismissed by the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
.
In April 2011, the Arizona legislature became the first to pass a bill "requiring President Obama and other presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names can appear on the state's ballot". The bill was vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer
Jan Brewer
Janice Kay "Jan" Brewer is the 22nd and current Governor of the U.S. state of Arizona and a member of the Republican Party. She is the fourth woman, and third consecutive woman, to hold the office...
on April 18.
White House response to controversy
A common claim among those arguing that President Obama was not born in Hawaii is that all doubt would be settled if Obama released his "long form" birth certificate. However, commentators noted that doing so would be disadvantageous to Obama. First, it would encourage speculation as to why it took so long to release the document. Second, caving in to his political adversaries' demands would embolden them by giving them a victory. Finally, it would open the door to demands for other personal records unrelated to his birth certificate. Despite these concerns, both Obama and his press secretary have responded to reporters' questions about the issue.Press secretary's response
At the end of the May 27, 2009, press briefingNews conference
A news conference or press conference is a media event in which newsmakers invite journalists to hear them speak and, most often, ask questions. A joint press conference instead is held between two or more talking sides.-Practice:...
, WorldNetDaily reporter Lester Kinsolving
Lester Kinsolving
Charles Lester Kinsolving is a political talk radio host, currently heard on WCBM in Baltimore, Maryland. He is better known, however, as a White House correspondent for WorldNetDaily...
asked about Obama's birth certificate. White House press secretary
White House Press Secretary
The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....
Robert Gibbs
Robert Gibbs
Robert Lane Gibbs was the 28th White House Press Secretary. Gibbs was the communications director for then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Obama's 2008 presidential campaign...
replied, "It's on the Internet", to which Kinsolving responded "No, no, no – the long form listing his hospital and physician." Gibbs responded as follows:
At a July 27, 2009, press briefing, radio talk show host Bill Press
Bill Press
William "Bill" Press is a US talk radio host, political commentator and author.-Career:Press has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Niagara University and Bachelor of Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg. He started his broadcasting career in Los Angeles for TV stations KABC-TV and...
asked Gibbs if there was anything he could say to make the issue go away. Gibbs answered, "No. I mean, the God's honest truth is no," because "nothing will assuage" those who continue to pursue what he called "made-up, fictional nonsense" despite the evidence that Obama had already provided.
On August 6, 2009, Gibbs commented, "You couldn't sell this script in Hollywood," and summarized the contentions that he considered "totally crazy":
Barack Obama's response
At the February 2010 National Prayer BreakfastNational Prayer Breakfast
The National Prayer Breakfast is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., on the first Thursday of February each year. The founder of this event was Abraham Vereide...
, Obama commented, "Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith. Or for that matter my citizenship." He directly addressed the issue in August 2010, in an interview with Brian Williams
Brian Williams
Brian Douglas Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network, a position he assumed in 2004...
. Williams asked Obama about the fact that a fifth of the American people do not believe that he is either American born or a Christian. Obama responded that "there is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly". He then added "I can't spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead."
On a few occasions, Obama has joked about the conspiracy theories surrounding his birth certificate and citizenship. At the 2010 White House Correspondents' Dinner
White House Correspondents' Association
The White House Correspondents' Association is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the President of the United States. The WHCA was founded in 1914 by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor that a Congressional committee would select which journalists could attend...
, Obama said there are few things in life harder to find and more important to keep than love, and then added, "Well, love and a birth certificate." At the 2011 Gridiron Dinner, Obama referred to Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
's song, "Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A. (song)
"Born in the U.S.A." is a 1984 song written and performed by Bruce Springsteen. Taken from the album of the same name, it is one of his best-known singles. Rolling Stone ranked the song 275th on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2001, the RIAA's Songs of the Century placed...
", and commented, "Some things just bear repeating." On March 17, 2011 (Saint Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick's Day is a religious holiday celebrated internationally on 17 March. It commemorates Saint Patrick , the most commonly recognised of the patron saints of :Ireland, and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland. It is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion , the Eastern...
), Obama said, "Now, speaking of ancestry, there has been some controversy about my own background. Two years into my presidency, some are still bent on peddling rumors about my origins. So today, I want to put all those rumors to rest. It is true my great-great-great-grandfather really was from Ireland. It’s true. Moneygall
Moneygall
Moneygall is a small village on the border of counties Offaly and North Tipperary, in Ireland. It is situated on the R445 road between Dublin and Limerick. At the time of the 2006 census, the village had a population of 298. Moneygall has a Catholic church, five shops, a post office, a national...
, to be precise. I can’t believe I have to keep pointing this out."
In an April 2011 interview with George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television journalist and a former political advisor.Stephanopoulos is most well known as the chief political correspondent for ABC News – the news division of the broadcast television network ABC – and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news...
, Obama said, "I think that over the last two and a half years there's been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically expedient in the short-term for Republicans, but creates, I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in a general election where most people feel pretty confident the President was born where he says he was, in Hawaii. He doesn't have horns. We may disagree with him on some issues and we may wish that you know, the unemployment rate was coming down faster and we want him to know his plan on gas prices. But we're not really worrying about conspiracy theories or ... birth certificates. And so ... I think it presents a problem for them."
On April 27, 2011, referring to "sideshows and carnival barkers", Obama appeared in the White House press room an hour after the release of the long form and said, "I know there is going to be a segment of people for which no matter what we put out this issue will not be put to rest. But I am speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as to the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do."
See also
- Barack Obama religion conspiracy theoriesBarack Obama religion conspiracy theoriesBarack Obama religion conspiracy theories—allegations that he secretly follows a non-Christian religion, or that he is the antichrist—have been suggested ever since Barack Obama began his campaign to become President of the United States in 2007...
- Birthright citizenship in the United States of AmericaBirthright citizenship in the United States of AmericaBirthright citizenship in the United States refers to a person's acquisition of United States citizenship by virtue of the circumstances of his or her birth. It contrasts with citizenship acquired in other ways, for example by naturalization later in life. Birthright citizenship may be conferred by...
- Chester A. ArthurChester A. ArthurChester Alan Arthur was the 21st President of the United States . Becoming President after the assassination of President James A. Garfield, Arthur struggled to overcome suspicions of his beginnings as a politician from the New York City Republican machine, succeeding at that task by embracing...
– another U.S. President whose birthplace was questioned - Where's the Birth Certificate?Where's the Birth Certificate?Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President is a book by Jerome Corsi which promotes the claim that U.S. president Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is thus constitutionally unqualified to hold the office. The book was...
– 2011 book arguing Obama is ineligible to hold the office of president of the U.S.
External links
- Barack Obama's vital records FAQ, Hawaii State Department of Health
Analysis
- The Truth About Obama's Birth Certificate by FactCheck.org
- False Rumor about Obama's Birth Certificate from Snopes.com
- PolitiFact's guide to Obama's birth certificate from PolitiFact
- Email Hoax: Occidental College Transcripts Reveal Foreign Citizenship from Urban Legends
- Obama Conspiracy Theories watchdog website
Commentary
- Culture of Conspiracy: The Birthers by The PoliticoThe PoliticoThe Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
- Anti-Obama Lunatics Living in Denial by The Daily Nation
- Archive of Pro-Conspiracy Reports from WorldNetDailyWorldNetDailyWorldNetDaily is an American web site that publishes news and associated content from a U.S. conservative perspective. It was founded in May 1997 by Joseph Farah with the stated intent of "exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power" and is headquartered in Washington, D.C.-History:In...
- 11 Most Paranoid Obama Conspiracy Theories - slideshow by The Huffington PostThe Huffington PostThe Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
- The former British police officer who wants to bring down Barack Obama by The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- American Grotesque by John Jeremiah Sullivan, GQ Magazine Cover Story, January 2010
- Birthers collected commentary at Salon.comSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
Multimedia
- The Daily Show: "The Born Identity" July 22, 2009
- Gordon Liddy on MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews July 23, 2009
- The Colbert Report: "Womb Raiders" Part 1 and *Part 2 with Orly Taitz July 28, 2009
- The Stupid Virus by Current TVCurrent TVCurrent TV, or Current, is a media company led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt. Comcast owns a ten percent stake of Current's parent company, Current Media LLC....
's SuperNews!SuperNews!SuperNews! was a half-hour, satirical animated television series which aired on Current TV. It was created by Josh Faure-Brac who also wrote for the show and performed the majority of male voices. The show is primarily based on popular culture satire and political humor...
, November 14, 2009 - History of the Birther Movement - slideshow by Life magazine