PrintApril 2, 2011
Resolving the Birth Certificate Issue
Satire
Now it can be told. In an exclusive to American Thinker, I reconstruct to the best of memory a recent meeting I had with a certain highly-placed government official in a certain pale-hued official government residence in a certain large city on the Potomac River. Although OpSec (Operational Security) prevents revealing actual names, you'll figure it out. Here's what went down as I entered his office:
Thanks for seeing me, Sir, I'll be brief. As we say in the military, let's break it down, I mean, let's break this birthing issue down and get this albatross off your neck in one quick whiz-bang TV show they'll never forget.
Here's my simple plan: You open our show with a few remarks about how troubled you are over this silly "birthing issue" and how you want to address the very reasonable concerns of your fellow citizens, etc. Then you introduce me as a licensed physician and obstetrician who knows about these things and who came forward with a simple plan to help.
I take over and tell Americans the truth about the Official Government Certificate of Birth (OGCOB), that is, how it's actually only a reading comprehension test, and the only thing it proves is how accurate some long-retired-likely-dead government clerk was in transcribing data from a hospital record into an official state record. As proof that OGCOBs are not reliable, I hold up my own from the State of Pennsylvania, circa 1939, to show them, yep, right there, some sleepy government drone misspelled my middle name. And now they're hooked.
Now, Sir, you know you can trust me, so let's just get the real issue right out in the open. I'm sure you're every bit the United States citizen I am and I'm sure your OGCOB will prove you are. Am I right? I thought so. So what that tells me is you don't want the world to see your OGCOB for some other reason, like maybe it reveals the name of your real father, who, I'm guessing, is not the person you have always maintained was your real father. Am I right? I thought so. So breaking it all the way down, your problem is how to produce proof of your true citizenship, but conceal the proof of your true paternal lineage.
Well, if that's the case, Sir, this is your lucky day because my simple plan will bypass the OGCOB to solve your problem and silence those right-wing Birthers once and for all. Sound good? Sure it does.
Now as I understand it, you were born in Kapi'olani Maternal & Gynecological Hospital in the City of Honolulu on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu in 1961, right? Good. That makes it easy because other than a little name-change, Kapi'olani is still very much in business which means we can get our hands on the actual 1961 delivery book.
What's a delivery book? Sorry, I thought you knew but since you don't, let me explain what it is and how it's going to be our ace-in-the-hole. And the best way for you to understand is to give you a step-by-step replay of the process by which an OGCOB is actually created.
You see, Sir, shortly after you were born, a Kapi'olani hospital clerk went to Labor and Delivery where she used your mother's chart and maybe even interviewed her to gather the information to send to the State of Hawaii that became officialized as your OGCOB. But since there's no way for the State to know if the original information was accurate or even if you were actually born at all, and since even official records can easily be "edited," an OGCOB is not good proof of anything outside of its own existence.
Which is where the delivery book comes in, as every maternity unit in every hospital in the country keeps a hand-written ledger like an old-time accountant's book, which is filled out immediately after a birth and documents the mother's full name, date and time, your birth weight and gender, delivery type (vaginal or Cesarean), etc. Now the important thing for you, Sir, is what the delivery book does not document and that is the name of your father (or even your own name, for that matter) so that information is safe. But the original Kapi'olani 1961 delivery book will be the proof you need that a woman with the name of your undisputed mother in fact delivered a baby of your undisputed gender, on the undisputed date you stated you were born, at the place you stated were born. So with that delivery book, Poof! your whole birthing problem vanishes into thin air.
No, no put that red phone down, Sir, and remember what your former Chief of Staff said about never letting a good crisis go to waste. You need to get as much political mileage out of this thing as possible, and stick it up those Birthers on primetime. Yes, I thought you'd like that.
So here's the rest of my simple plan: You order the Secret Service, maybe CIA, to stage a televised raid with lights, sirens -- no guns, remember Waco -- on the Archive Department of Kapi'olani Hospital and confiscate that 1961 delivery book. Trust me, they'll have it, they keep those things forever. Then a big Marine chopper flies the book over to Waikiki Beach, Diamond Head, maybe even Pearl Harbor -- your call -- and Green Berets fast-rope it down to you on the big reviewing stand. Then, like Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's safe on national TV, you slowly and dramatically turn the pages -- cue the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with "America, The Beautiful" as background -- while the camera does a slow pan over your shoulder and pulls down tight into a full-screen close-up of the entry for August 4, 1961, where the world sees for the first time ever, the actual hand-written record of the birth of a President, and the proof positive of his American citizenship.
Give you chills, Sir? I should say. We put this show opposite Dancing With The Stars and watch your approval ratings go through the roof.
What do you mean, you want to think about it? What's there to think about? You were born at Kapi'olani and you are an American citizen, aren't you, Sir? No, no need to call security. I'll find my own way out. Sorry, Sir, I was only trying to help.
Of course, he'll probably tell a different story, but that's how I remember it. Wait a minute. Those lights, those sirens. They're turning down my street! Uh oh, you don't suppose? Guantanamo, here I come.
F. Owen Smith, MD is an OB/GYN.
