... check with your California Bureau of Vital Statistics in Sacramento.

A Birth Certificate is an official signed certification by a duly qualified and licensed person or authority acting in the capacity of an eye-witness (attending physician, hospital administrator, etc.) that a birth took place at a definite date and time in a definite location (hospital, clinic, residence, etc.), city and state to named parents (or at least the mother, if the father is unknown).

Obama's BC does not show the attending physician or the hospital, and is not signed by a duly-qualified licensed official eye-witness.

For the sake of convenience, many states have keyed the data from the long form into a database from which they print the short-form and then emboss an official seal on it, with a signature by a deputy clerk of the Bureau of Vital Statistics. This enables states to quickly print up copies instead of having to go to their archives, retrieve the original long-form copy, run it through a copier, then re-file it. However, there is absolutely no reason why all states cannot or do not show all the information from the long form, including the exact location of birth (hospital, etc) and the name of the attending eye-witness official (doctor, hospital administrator, etc.). Tennessee has gone further, and in addition to keying all the information into a database, they have digitized the images of all originals so that they are able to generate actual images of the original long form documents, which, when certified, sealed and signed by an authorized state official, are pretty iron-clad evidence.

In most cases, a certified copy of a computer-generated short form would probably be sufficient to obtain a passport or to run for most political offices, unless authorities had some reason to suspect fraud or have run across conflicting information, and that is their job to look into these matters. You can bet your bippy that the US State Department, when issuing a passport, can contact any State Bureau of Vital Statistics to verify information if they deem necessary ... likewise for the FBI and DHS.

As a matter of fact, I doubt that any other President has been required to even present a birth certificate because the American Public pretty much knows where they came from, and nobody questions their origins. We truly believe that William "Bill" Jefferson Clinton was born in Hope, Arkansas, even knowing that his real birth name was William Jefferson Blythe III before being adopted by his step-father. We believe that Abraham Lincoln was born in or near Hodgenville, Kentucky ... even though we have no real documented proof. My father was born at home in our old family estate on July 9, 1901, and there is no recorded birth certificate or record of attending physician. The only proof was the word of my grandparents and other pier relatives, all of whom are now deceased. On the other hand, by the time I was born in 1943, things had changed, and certified birth documents were the law in most states.

In the case of Barack Hussein Obama II, a/k/a Barry Soetoro, there is reasonable reason to question his eligibility for the Presidency (note that nobody ever raised the issue when he became a US Senator) because of his roots in Kenya and Indonesia, and the sketchy details about where he was, when, and what other citizenships he might claim.

It is fairly well documented and passes the test of reason that folks in Alaska and Hawaii, which attained Statehood in 1959, were able to get "official" birth certificates thereafter without any real proof of where they were actually born. Anyone born in another country could have moved to Hawaii before 1959 or at any reasonable point thereafter and subsequently registered for a birth certificate later at a time when they actually needed it (e.g., for a passport), and there was no mechanism in place to challenge or deny an application for a birth certificate. It may even be possible that people who can prove that they were born in Hawaii or Alaska prior to 1959 are considered natural-born US citizens by virtue of those US territories becoming official states. But, it is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that if one cannot prove where they were born with an original long-form Certificate of Birth, then their status as a natural-born US citizen, and therefore their eligibility for the Presidency, is questionable.

Now, be reasonable, Max, and listen to ole Mondo. I am not asking for anything but credible proof of the natural-born status of Obama. Once I see it, I will indeed STFU about his eligibility and focus entirely on his lack of experience and his wild-ass spending, and we can continue having fun disagreeing on just about everything.

Fair enow?