http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-produces-his-birth-certificate/2011/04/27/AFFISyxE_story.html



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http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf

By Karen Tumulty and Perry Bacon Jr., Updated: Wednesday, April 27, 9:33 AM
In a gesture that acknowledged the corrosive and distracting effect that a false but persistent rumor has had on the Obama presidency, the White House on Wednesday released the long-form version of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, which showed that he was born in Hono­lulu, Hawaii.

In a White House appearance, a smiling Obama expressed puzzlement that some people continue to believe he is not a U.S. citizen, a rumor he said has been fueled by “side shows and carnival barkers.”

Citing the serious economic challenges that face the nation, Obama added, “We do not have time for this silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do. We’ve got big problems to solve.”

The belief that Obama was born in another country, which the most recent CBS/New York Times poll suggests is embraced by about a quarter of Americans, has been used by some conservative critics of the president as a means to question his constitutional legitimacy to occupy the White House — and even his basic American-ness.

“The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer wrote in a blog post on the White House Web site. “It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country.”

Most recently, it has been raised in near-constant television appearances by showman and business executive Donald Trump, who is flirting with the prospect of running for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. As recently as Tuesday, Trump — who claimed to have a team of investigators looking into the issue in Hawaii — said he had heard that the certificate was missing.

“I’m very proud of myself because I’ve accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish,” Trump announced as he arrived in Portsmouth, N.H., for what looked like a campaign swing, to the news that Obama had released the certificate. “I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully — hopefully — getting rid of this issue.”

At that point, Trump launched into another favorite topic: whether Obama — who graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude — deserved admission to Ivy League schools. Trump cited unspecified sources who claim that Obama had not been a good student.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama had posted on the Internet a shorter “certification of live birth,” which Pfeiffer noted was the same one that Hawaiians use to get a driver’s license from the state and the one recognized by the federal government and the courts.

The campaign also set up a Web site to address the “birther” controversy, as well as other rumors that had dogged Obama.

However, the rumor persisted — and, Obama acknowledged during his appearance Wednesday, probably will, despite the release of the long-form birth certificate.

The timing is in some ways surprising — though also telling of what drives the political culture these days. It came on a day when the top story might otherwise have been news of changes in the administration’s national security team.

And even as Trump had vaulted up in some polls of the Republican 2012 field in part by making claims that Obama was not born in the United States, a series of major Republican figures, including Karl Rove, the top political strategist for President George W. Bush, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, considered a leading contender for the 2012 GOP nomination, had publicly urged members of the party to move on from the “birther” issue.

Indeed, it is far from clear who is hurt most by the persistent rumors, which many Republicans believe makes their purveyors seem wacky.

Obama himself was mentioning the birthers his recent campaign speeches, attempting to fire up his own supporters by reminding them of how some Republicans remained so sharply opposed to him.

In an interview with ABC News earlier this month, Obama suggested that continued questions about his background from Republicans such as Trump would hurt the GOP in next year’s elections.

It “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,” Obama said. “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 to know his plan on gas prices.

“But we’re not really worrying about conspiracy theories or or birth certificates,” Obama said, “and so I think it presents a problem for them.”