PrintJanuary 19, 2011
Hawaii governor hasn't found Obama's birth certificate yet
Neil Abercrombie, the newly elected governor of Hawaii promised to make public the original long form birth certificate of Barack Obama, to quell the controversy over the President's birth. Yesterday, in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, he was asked about the promise:
Q: You stirred up quite a controversy with your comments regarding birthers and your plans to release more information regarding President BarackObama's birth certificate. How is that coming?A: I got a letter from someone the other day who was genuinely concerned about it; it is not all just political agenda. They were talking on Olelo last night about this; it has a political implication for 2012 that we simply cannot have.(Abercrombie said there is a recording of the birth in the State Archives and he wants to use that.)It was actually written I am told, this is what our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives, written down ......What I can do, and all I have ever said, is that I am going to see to it as governor that I can verify to anyone who is honest about it that this is the case.If there is a political agenda then there is nothing I can do about that, nor can the president.
So for some reason, although there is supposed to be a "recording of the birth," the investigators have not yet found it. Perhaps the documents in the Hawaii State Archives are so badly organized that weeks of effort are necessary to uncover a document. Strangely enough, Governor Linda Lingle, who was in office until this January, had her Director of Health, Dr. Chiyome Fukino issue the following statement:
"There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record."Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawai‘i.
This oddly worded statement caused much skeptical commentary at the time it was issued. Note that Dr. Fukino does not say she has seen the actual birth certificate, but rather that she has seen that it is on record. This is consistent with Gov. Abercrombie's statement that it is recorded (but he can't produce the certificate itself).
Did Dr. Fukino find some sort of index entry and not bother to look at the actual certificate itself? If so, why?
And why did Governor Lingle make the following statement, if she had never seen the actual certificate in an interview with Rabbi Schmuly Boteach on WABC Radio in New York (recording here):
"It's been an odd situation," Lingle said, referring to the continuing controversy over the disputed natural-born citizenship of Obama. "This issue kept coming up so much in the campaign, and again I think it's one of those issues that is simply a distraction from the more critical issues that are facing the country."So I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records of the Department of Health, and we issued a news release at that time saying that the president was, in fact, born at Kapi'olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that's just a fact and yet people continue to call up and e-mail and want to make it an issue and I think it's again a horrible distraction for the country by those people who continue this."
Governor Lingle misrepresents Dr. Fukino's statement here. That also caused much controversy, and would seem to indicate she has seen the long form, which would record the place of birth. The two versions of the Certificate of Live Birth (which can be issued on the basis of a statement to authorities, and which does not even mean that a birth necessarily took place in Hawaii) which have been published do not contain anty information on the place of birth.
Has Governor Abercrombie asked his predecessor for help in finding the document?
Has Governor Abercrombie asked his predecessor for help in finding the document?
In the words of Lewis Carroll, it gets curiouser and curiouser.
Of course, to the mainstream media, all these contradictory statements and a document that somehow can't be produced by the Governor are of no interest at all. Nothing to see here, move along. They will continue to demonize anyone who suggests that it is a bit odd that nobody can locate the actual document recording the actual birth of the President of the United States.
But to anyone with an inquisitive mind, it does appear to be very strange indeed that there would be such a huge problem in locating the document itself.
Image by Andrew Thomas of Dark Angel Politics
Image by Andrew Thomas of Dark Angel Politics
