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<H1 property="dc.title">Obama’s release of birth certificate does little to
allay ‘birther’ fears</H1>
<H3 property="dc.creator">By <A
href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/joel+achenbach/">Joel
Achenbach</A>, <SPAN class=updated>Wednesday, April 27, <SPAN
class=special>6:43 PM</SPAN></SPAN></H3>
<P>It proves nothing. It could be fake. It’s all so fishy. Aren’t there multiple
layers on the scanned document released by the White House? Why did it take so
long to produce?</P>
<P>The people who do not believe that President Obama was born in the United
States showed Wednesday that a good conspiracy theory is like a coal mine fire:
something that can’t be doused in a day. </P>
<P>The president, pestered by “birthers” since he began running for the White
House, finally felt compelled to try to put an end to the controversy, providing
<A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/birth-certificate-new-skin.html">his
original birth certificate</A> for the first time.</P>
<P>“Yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, August 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital,”
Obama <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-produces-his-birth-certificate/2011/04/27/AFFISyxE_story.html">told
the White House press corps</A>, before going on to demand an end to the
“silliness” about his birthplace that he fears has distracted the country from
urgent policy matters involving wars, the federal debt and the economy.</P>
<P>But he added, “I know that there’s going to be a segment of people for which,
no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest.”</P>
<P>Correct. The birthers, far from chastised, found themselves newly energized
and freshly suspicious.</P>
<P>“It raises far more questions than it answers,” said Joseph Farah, editor in
chief of <A href="http://www.wnd.com/">WorldNetDaily</A> and birther
extraordinaire, almost breathless between media interviews.</P>
<P>Farah, whose online publication has run hundreds of articles over the past
couple of years questioning Obama’s citizenship, professed delight at the latest
development. So did real estate tycoon <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/obamas-birth-certificate-gambit-and-trumps-role-in-it/2011/04/27/AFFrJKyE_blog.html">Donald
Trump</A>, who has found that raising questions about Obama’s legitimacy is
political jet fuel for someone pondering a presidential run. </P>
<P>Trump said he felt “honored” to have played a role in the White House’s move,
and then he nimbly skipped to his next demand — the release of Obama’s college
transcript, which he thinks will show that Obama was no star student.</P>
<P>The dispassionate observer might think that Wednesday’s production of the
birth certificate could not fail to bury forever the carefully manufactured
controversy of the president’s origin. The facts are now as official as facts
can possibly get: Barack Hussein Obama II was born at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961,
on the island of Oahu in the state of Hawaii.</P>
<P>But it is the nature of a conspiracy theory that all information must pass
through a very discerning, yet simple, filter. Information that is
confirmational is accepted; that which is contradictory is rejected.</P>
<P>Conspiracy theories have the self-sustaining gift of ramification: They
sprout new tendrils, like a mad vine that has invaded from another continent.
For the committed conspiracy theorist, there is always another angle to explore,
another anomaly to scrutinize.</P>
<P><A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/05/AR2009100503819.html">Orly
Taitz</A>, a prominent Obama critic who has questioned his birthplace, <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/05/AR2009100503819.html">told
Talking Points Memo</A> that she thinks the newly released document is
questionable because Obama’s father’s race is listed as “African.”</P>
<P>“It sounds like it would be written today, in the age of political
correctness, and not in 1961, when they wrote white or Asian or ‘Negro,’” Taitz
said.</P>
<P>At one hotbed of birtherism, the certificate appeased no one.</P>
<P>“You know as well as I do that you can produce a fraudulent form,” said
Sharon Guthrie, legislative director for Texas state Rep. Leo Berman (R), who
has introduced a bill that would require that anyone running in Texas for
president provide an original birth certificate proving American citizenship.
</P>
<P>Obama’s birth was announced in two local newspapers, and the Obama campaign
released a short form of his birth certificate when he ran for office. But the
long form of the document remained under wraps in a vault until the president
dispatched a lawyer last week to retrieve it. </P>
<P>Guthrie argued that the document Obama produced on Wednesday is not a birth
certificate but merely a “certificate of live birth,” which she considers
something different. </P>
<P>Said Farah of WorldNetDaily: “I think we should do due diligence there and
examine it before we jump to conclusions that, because a government official
handed something out, it is legit.” </P>
<P>He said that even if the document is real, it raises questions about Obama’s
eligibility to be president. Farah contended that, because Obama’s father was
from Africa, the president might have had “dual citizenship” and therefore might
not meet the definition of a “natural-born” citizen, the eligibility requirement
in the Constitution. He suggested that it is necessary to revisit the intentions
of the Framers.</P>
<P>He added, “This has never been an issue exclusively about where Barack Obama
was born.”</P>
<P>But it was certainly the major issue. Obama critic Jerome Corsi has written a
book, slated for a May 17 release, titled, <A
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936488299/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1936488299">“Where’s
the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be
President.”</A> Corsi, <A
href="http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=43&authorId=82&AUTHOR_ID=246">who also
writes for WorldNetDaily</A>, will not be giving interviews until the book is on
shelves, according to a WND spokesman.</P>
<P>The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Wednesday night that the birthers use “coded and
covert rhetoric to stir up racial fears,” as part of a broader attempt to
delegitimize Obama and push back against civil rights and equal rights.</P>
<P>“It’s a code word: ‘He’s not one of us,’ ” Jackson said, giving his view of
the birther mind-set. “ ‘He wasn’t born here. He’s not a Christian. He’s a
Muslim, we don’t worship the same god.’ It’s a very coded designation to try
undermine his legitimacy.”</P>
<P>Jackson added, “ ‘Birther’ is a kind label for a much deeper and toxic
movement.”</P>
<P>The birther controversy has elements common to many other conspiracy theories
in recent decades, such as the belief that the <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2006/03/30/LI2006033000769.html">Sept.
11, 2001, attacks</A> were an inside job facilitated by the U.S. government, and
the theory that the government has been covering up the presence of
extraterrestrial visitors. </P>
<P>These theories do not always find a purchase on one distinct portion of the
ideological spectrum. What they have in common is the emotional investment of
the believers: The theory becomes not merely a hunch or a notion, but rather a
core belief that is part of the believer’s identity. The person isn’t going to
abandon the faith simply because a piece of paper surfaces that would seem — to
others who are not so invested in the theory — to refute the central notion.</P>
<P>“It’s easier psychologically to come up with a rationalization than it is to
admit that you were wrong,” said Ronald Lindsay, president of the Committee for
Skeptical Inquiry, in Amherst, N.Y., publisher of the myth-debunking magazine <A
href="http://www.csicop.org/si/">The Skeptical Inquirer</A>.</P>
<P>“If you have a pre-commitment to a certain point of view, and that point of
view is important for your identity — if you are emotionally attached to it —
your emotion is going to shape your reasoning process. You’ll be presented with
facts, but you’ll find some way to minimize the significance of those fact,”
Lindsay said.</P>
<P>People not so invested in the birther point of view may be swayed by the
White House’s production of the birth certificate. Recent polling suggests that,
before Wednesday, large chunks of the electorate were unpersuaded that Obama was
born in the United States.</P>
<P>A <A href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002539-503544.html">New
York Times/CBS News poll</A> early this month showed that only 41 percent of
Republicans and only 53 percent of independents think that Obama was born in the
United States. What apparently got the White House’s attention was the further
erosion of those numbers as Trump continued to question the president’s birth.
Within days, <A
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20056061-503544.html">another New
York Times/CBS poll</A> showed that only 33 percent of Republicans believed the
president was American-born.</P></FONT></DIV>
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