President Barack Obama, fearing a conservative fringe was inching toward the mainstream, released his long-form birth certificate Wednesday to prove his U.S. citizenship and denounced as "carnival barkers" opponents who have questioned whether he was born in the U.S.
Obama's Full Birth Certificate
The White House released President Barack Obama's full certificate of live birth. See the document.
Obama's 'Short' Birth Certificate
The document showed what independent investigators had long said but opponents demanded to see in writing: Mr. Obama was born in the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 4, 1961.
For nearly three years, opponents who have come to be known as "birthers" have harangued Mr. Obama to prove he meets the constitutional requirement that the president be a natural born U.S. citizen. The release during the campaign of the standard, legal "certification of live birth" from the state of Hawaii did little to satisfy those demands.
White House and Obama campaign officials had been convinced the issue helped the president politically, by marginalizing his opposition. But in recent weeks, real estate mogul Donald Trump grabbed the issue to make waves as he tests the waters for a possible presidential run. Fearing the traction he was gaining, Mr. Obama decided last week to release the fuller document, a Democratic official said. On Monday, Mr. Obama sent his personal lawyer to Hawaii to retrieve the documentation.
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said the decision had nothing to do with politics and that, in fact, the issue was still working in the president's favor, not against him.
|