Why should we believe statements about health care from the most secretive president since Richard Nixon?  We have no way of knowing if presidents who keep significant secrets in some areas are telling the truth on other matters.  

Barack Obama's continued refusal to release minor personal documents like his actual birth certificate, college records, etc. implies he is covering up important information that we should know about.   Unless his critics are correct, none of the information should have any adverse affect other than possibly causing some embarrassment.  

A president who feels he has to keep personal secrets is very likely to also keep secrets about his proposals including those involving health care.   He shouldn't be surprised that many people suspect he has ulterior motives for some proposals and may be lying about their impact.

Obama has lied on other important issues.  Last year he said there wouldn't be any new taxes for most of us.  After being elected he proposed huge tax on carbon emissions that will affect all of us.  The purpose of the tax is to allow the greedy financial interests who bought the White House for him to make billions trading "carbon credits".  

I don't know if his critics are correct that the refusal to release his actual birth certificate is due to him being born outside the U.S., but there doesn't appear to be any other reason for him to keep the birth certificate secret.  Does the birth certificate indicate Obama was born outside the U.S. or could it include information that might indicate that Obama is not  the child mentioned on the certificate?  Perhaps the real Barack Obama died shortly after birth and his mother in a humanitarian move adopted an African orphan to replace the baby she lost.    She then used the U.S. certificate to make it appear her new child was born in the U.S.

Incidentally there is now a claim that someone has found a Kenyan birth registration indicating he was born in Kenya.     As was the case with the document used to claim he was born in Hawaii, the other side suggests it is a forgery.  And, like the Hawaiian document, it merely states that there is a birth certificate rather than being an actual birth certificate.  Those who believe the document is valid suggest it may have been produced in connection with his mother's divorce case.

There once was a time when the refusal of a politician to release a document would provoke editorials demanding that the document be made public.  Journalists were suspicious of politicians who kept secrets.  Journalists were concerned that  politicians who kept secrets might be covering up scandalous behavior.

So why  no editorials about President-elect Barack Obama's refusal to release a copy of his  original  birth certificate or at least allow a representative group of journalists examine it?

Would journalists be as trusting of a Republican politician?  Have they forgotten William "I never had sexual relations with that woman"  Clinton?

Obama is from Illinois, a state with bipartisan corruption.  The current governor, a Democrat, seems destined to join his Republican predecessor in jail for selling favors. 

Real journalists should be naturally suspicious of all politicians,  because con artists can sometimes sound more convincing than those who are telling the truth.  
  
Ordinary citizens have to provide copies of birth certificates  to apply for Social Security or  even renew drivers'  licenses they have had for decades.  Why is it unreasonable to require someone wanting to be president to provide something more than a vague Hawaiian "Certification of Live Birth" to prove he is a citizen?  No one is going to use the information to steal his identity.

Hawaiin officials will only confirm that he has a birth certificate on file, but not that it indicates he was born in Hawaii.  Hawaii allows parents who are Hawaiian residents to register the births of children   born elsewhere.

Real journalists would be asking what Obama is covering up instead of supporting his secrecy.  Real journalists wouldn't be surprised that many suspect Obama is covering up a major problem such as the possibility he wasn't born in the U.S..  

After all why else would he want to keep the document secret?  He's already been elected and any embarassing information contained in it cannot change  the election results. Releasing the document won't compromise national security -- the reason often given for wanting to keep foreign policy related documents, such as the Pentagon Papers, secret.

I don't know if Obama was born in the U.S.  or not,  but  I know he could easily have  eliminated doubts by  allowing Hannity and Colmes or some other journalists to examine his original birth certificate. 

By allowing Obama to keep his birth records secret, the media may  cause Obama to think he can get away with refusing to release other documents that might contain damaging information.

Are those who call themselves journalists refusing to challenge Obama because they are afraid if they look behind the curtain that  they will discover  their "wonderful wizard of oz" isn't a wonderful wizard after all. 

 

The problem with reporters and other Democrats is that they have memories like a VHS tape.  When they get to the end of the tape, they begin recording over what they used to know. 

The Main Stream Media (MSM) and other Democrats may be about to make the same mistake they made in 1992.  They may again ignore  potential problems with  their presidential candidate.

In 1992 the MSM  minimized  claims that  Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton  was a womanizer.  The MSM and the Democratic accepted  his claim that he had only had one affair for which his wife had forgiven him.  Other politicians would subsequently follow the same format when they got caught with their pants  down. 

Another  potential problem involved  one of the many investigations involving the various savings and loan failures.  The Justice Department had discovered the  Clintons might be linked to a failed Arkansas savings and loan.  Democrats ignored the potential damage that the Whitewater  investigation might cause.

Six years later Bill Clinton's womanizing would produce a major scandal and White House intern Monica Lewinsky would become an instant celebrity.  Whitewater and Monicagate would become intertwined when  Clinton lied to a federal judge.  

As a  result of the scandal Clinton was impeached.  Although the Senate didn't vote him out of office, he and his party were weakened.  Even worse, Clinton tried to preserve his administration by provoking a confrontation with Iraq that resulted in the U.N. inspectors leaving the country.  Had the inspectors remained in Iraq, it is highly unlikely that President George W. Bush could have persuaded Congress  to support an invasion of Iraq.

There are allegations that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus cannot meet the Contitutional requirement of being a "natural born citizen".  If he was born in Hawaii he could easily prove it by authorizing Hawaiin officials to show his original birth certificate to the media.  Instead, Obama has provided only an electronic copy of a Hawaiian Certification of Live Birth.     

Electronic copies of documents and pictures are too easy to forge to provide convincing evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii.  Indeed an expert named  Texasdude has analyzed the document and considers it a forgery.

I don't know where Obama was born, but his response thus far implies that he wasn't born in Hawaii.  Those who suggest he might have been born in Kenya and his mother than flew back to Hawaii to make it appear he was born there provide no evidence to support their theory.  I cannot automatically dismiss the theory because many Mexican mothers take risks to cross the border into the U.S. so their babies can be U.S. citizens.

Texas Darlin suggests that his original birth certificate might have been sealed after his stepfather Lolo Soetoro adopted him and a new birth certificate in the name of Barry Soetoro issued.   Under this more plausible theory,  Obama may want to suppress the truth because it would indicate he once was named Barry Soetoro, but failed to note the fact on subsequent  government documents.  Texas Darlin believes Republicans have a copy of Obama's birth certificate.  If they do and it would hurt Obama they probably won't leak it to the media until after he is approved as the Democratic party candidate. 

An official adoption  by an Indonesian  man would mean Obama would have become an Indonesian ctiizen under Indonesian law.  Obama wouldn't have lost U.S. citizenship because the change was involuntary on his part, but he probably would have had to make some type of official statement that he wished to be a U.S. citizen after he became an adult.  It might be possible that holding citizenship in another country, even if involuntary, would mean he no longer qualified as a "natural born citizen".       

Democrats need to get this issue cleared up before they approve Obama as their candidate.  They could end up with a candidate who is unelectable.  Democrats  lost in 2004 in part because the truth about John Kerry's service in Vietnam didn't come out until after Democrats approved him as their candidate. 
       

Many people don't understand the issue dealing with  Barack Obama's birth certificate.  If Barack Obama doesn't  meet the limited constitutional qualifications for president he cannot legally exercise the powers of the office.  The fact that his claim about being born in Hawaii have been accepted in the past  doesn't mean the claim is valid. 

If Obama was actually born in Hawaii all he has to do is authorize  Hawaiian officials to show his original birth certificate to the media, possibly with the restriction that journalists not make a copy of it or show the document on television.  The computer generated  document Obama  has on his website   to prove he qualifies as a "natural born citizen"  isn't adequate because it would be too easy to forge as  Israel Insider has suggested in a series of articles.   

I had to obtain a copy of my birth certificate last year when I retired to apply for my state pension.  It's an actual copy of the original which was handwritten on a printed form and included the doctor's signature.  I don't know if the state stores the original documents or maintains copies on microfilm.

The document Obama is using includes only a limited amount of information that could easily have been placed on the computer by a hacker.   If Hawaii actually provides such documents, I suspect that those wishing to establish fake citizenship  choose Hawaii as the state they were supposedly born in.

If  Obama is running for president even though he knows he isn't qualified, he probably wouldn't feel bound by constitutional limits on the president's powers.  We've had enough problems with presidents wanting to expand their powers in recent decades.  We don't need a president who runs for office in violation of the Constitution.

Failure to present evidence that he is qualified to be president could create a constitutional crisis.

Republicans could challenge his election in Congress when the electoral colleges ballots are counted.  If anyone on the Republican side has information that Obama isn't qualified to be president, they would likely not release that information until after he is nominated to discredit the Democratic Party.  

Any government agency that can prove Obama isn't a citizen might use that information to blackmail him rather than make the information public as J Edgar Hoover is believed to have done.

An unqualified president cannot sign legislation into law.  Someone charged with violating new laws could challenge the constitutionality of the laws and request the government to prove that Obama is a "natural born" citizen of the United States. 
  
After 9/11 we learned that many government officials had been lax about issuing government documents.  Obama may not have had to have a birth certificate when he moved in with his grandparents in 1971.  He would have obtained a passport when he was very young because his mother moved across national boundaries.  In the 1960's he probably would not have needed a birth certificate if his mother provided a statement about his birth.

Continued questions about Barack Obama's birth certificate demonstrate that the major parties  need  to  institute a requirement  that  those who want  a party's nomination should first have to undergo a full scale FBI background check before seeking the nomination.  Such a requirement would insure party members had all necessary information before choosing candidates. 

Israel Insider, a major online newspaper in Israel, is claiming that the birth certificate Barack Obama is using to claim  to have been born in Hawaii is a forgery.   Analysis indicates   it might be  a modified version of his half-sister Maya Kassandra Soetoro's birth certificate.  You may recall that online experts exposed a forged document Dan Rather attempted to use to discredit George W. Bush four years ago.

If the claim is correct, it would not necessarily mean Obama wasn't born in Hawaii.  He could have simply have used her birth certificate instead of obtaining a copy of his own.  I don't know why he would do so, but it is a possibility.  Perhaps there is some type of adverse information on his birth certificate.

Obama's citizenship is potentially questionable because his parents were not both U.S. citizens as was the case with John McCain's parents.  Being born to a mother who was a U.S. citizenship would not automatically have conferred  U.S. citizenship because his father was not  a U.S. citizen.  Being born  in  the United States or  their possessions would have eliminated  any question.  The laws in effect at the time were complex and his mother's extended residence outside the U.S. would have worked against him.  

The citizenship question is important because the Constitution requires presidents to be a "natural born citizen"  but does not define the qualification.

The Democratic Party should request  Hawaiian authorities and/or the FBI to investigate to determine if there is a valid birth certificate on file for him.    Past elections indicate that the truth will eventually come out.  Democrats need to find out the truth before they nominate someone who might be using an invalid document to claim eligibility to run for president.  Nominating an ineligible presidential candidate would  probably  give the election to Sen. John McCain, regardless of whom Democrats chose to replace Obama.
 
Democrats had to replace vice presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton in 1972 after it was belatedly discovered he had been treated for depression.

Presidential and vice presidential candidates have no secrets.  Anything questionable in the their past will likely come out  like  George W,. Bush's DUI arrest when he was young.   A background check would insure that party members would know about such problems before choosing a nominee.
 
The issue in this case can be resolved easily if Obama will authorize Hawaii to show a copy of his birth certificate to the media.   For the future, the parties need to have background checks.