{"id":317,"date":"2011-05-01T16:10:39","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T20:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/borjeson.com\/?p=317"},"modified":"2011-11-01T14:45:31","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T18:45:31","slug":"birthers-wont-go-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/?p=317","title":{"rendered":"Birthers Won’t Go Away"},"content":{"rendered":"
Washington (CNN)<\/strong> — The White House released copies of President Barack Obama’s original long-form birth certificate Wednesday, seeking to put an end to persistent rumors that he was not born in the United States.<\/h6>\n

Did this finally put to rest the claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States? Of course not. As Jonathan Swift once said, \u201cIt is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The facts of the issue were settled long ago. Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. On June 12, 2008 the Obama campaign responded to the rumors by posting a copy of his birth certificate<\/a> online. Titled \u201cCertification of Live Birth\u201d and sometimes referred to as the \u201cshort form\u201d it is the document anyone born in the state of Hawaii will receive if he asks for a copy of his birth certificate. A variety of Hawaiian state officials have confirmed that it is indeed Obama\u2019s birth certificate. Announcements of his birth appeared in the local newspapers the Honolulu Advertiser<\/em> on August 13, 1961 and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin<\/em> on August 14, 1961.<\/p>\n

But the lunatic fringe finds none of that persuasive. And as \u201cproof\u201d some offered a supposed Kenyan birth certificate. When it surfaced the document was quickly revealed as a forgery, not even a good forgery. It shows a certificate issued by the Republic of Kenya, three years before the Republic of Kenya existed. Real birth certificates from Kenya in 1961 looked very different<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All conspiracy theories have at their core a major flaw. They presuppose a world filled with very competent people acting in a highly coordinated fashion, with laser like focus on long term goals, maintaining absolute secrecy. That\u2019s not the world we live in. The real world is filled with marginally competent people, who have trouble taking directions and can barely look ahead a few weeks much less decades. And very few people can keep their mouths shut.<\/p>\n

So the lunatic fringe will continue to deny all the facts and believe that Barack Obama is not a US citizen, but what about everyone else? Conservative politicians want the lunatic fringe vote. Cynical perhaps, but that\u2019s politics today. The biggest problem is the media that continues to cover the story. Somewhere along the line they have forgotten that journalists have a responsibility to the truth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington (CNN) — The White House released copies of President Barack Obama’s original long-form birth certificate Wednesday, seeking to put an end to persistent rumors that he was not born in the United States. Did this finally put to rest … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":404,"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borjeson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}