# Whitehouse releases Obama long form birth-certificate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 27, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889 "2011-04-27T13:47:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/41 "2011-04-27T15:06:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I can’t help thinking he should’ve released the birth certificate the day of the Iowa caucuses or even a few weeks into the GOP primary cycle just to throw the whole thing into chaos. It would’ve been hilarious anyway. This makes several GOP candidates and pretend-candidates (Trump) look stupid, but they were doing that on their own. Stupid as all this is, it might’ve been good for Obama if he’d showed up at a debate and said “I’m proposing solutions for our economic problems and ending our dependency on oil and my opponent is arguing about the fine print on my birth certificate. Who are you going to vote for?” Now they’ll start talking about his college grades instead. The stupidity doesn’t go away. you mean like they talked about Bush’s college grades? Trump already started in on that and Obama has already admitted his earlier grades weren’t the best. But then his degree was in poly sci so it doesn’t really matter. He can point to his magna cum laude Harvard Law School grades as a counter. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/42 "2011-04-27T15:07:19Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Her father was named Stanley and wanted a son. When he didn’t get one, he somehow prevailed upon his wife to name their daughter Stanley. I don’t think I’ll ever understand that one. That’s what the Obama administration and his friends in the liberal media want you to think. There’s a simpler answer. Obama’s mother was a man. That’s right. Not only was Obama raised by radical Socialist Atheist Muslims who taught him to hate America, he was raised by gay radical Socialist Atheist Muslims who taught him to hate America. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/43 "2011-04-27T15:15:52Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > you mean like they talked about Bush’s college grades? It’s similar if you think of legacy admissions as affirmative action for rich white people. 😉 In case anybody hasn’t seen this before: > **[Obama's Harvard transcript - an issue?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=573003)** > > I was just having a conversation with a family friend who is a staunch Republican, and someone I generally respect. He claims that Obama’s Harvard transcript has never been publicly released, and seems to read at least some whiff of scandal into... ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/44 "2011-04-27T15:16:12Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Looks like it is to me. The columns on Obama’s certificates are numbered anyways, and none are missing, so whatever the boxes are to the left, they aren’t part of Obama’s information. it can’t be another certificate because the lines don’t continue from left to right. It could be completely blank space for the purposes of binding but there’s writing on it and there’s chicken scratch all over the certificate in the form of X’s, check marks, and numbers. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/45 "2011-04-27T15:16:30Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > I never realized his mother’s first name was Stanley… Ah, so she’s a man, baby! Which only deepens the conspiracy. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/46 "2011-04-27T15:16:38Z")
> [@BigBadWolf](#): > > Allowing Trump to claim he accomplished this is yet another reason I find the timing to be questionable politically. It’s brilliant. It turns Trump, a certifiable baboon, into a real Presidential candidate. The only way Obama could more easily ensure victory in 2012 is if Sarah Palin signs on to be VP again. The GOP primaries will be a circus and no one will look good coming out of it. Obama just gleefully poured more fuel on the fire from a can labeled “Gotcha ya!” ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/47 "2011-04-27T15:18:11Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Well, it’s _mostly_ over. The fine journalists at WND have the tenacity to keep with it despite the president’s publicity stunt: > [URL=“[WorldNetDaily](http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=292165)”] From the story you linked to: > [@](#): > > Some of the cases challenging Obama have explained that he was a dual citizen through his father at his birth, and they contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born citizens. I guess that would disqualify Trump as well, since his mother was Scottish. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/48 "2011-04-27T15:20:23Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > From the story you linked to: > > I guess that would disqualify Trump as well, since his mother was Scottish. and his hair is some kind of Canadian road kill. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/49 "2011-04-27T15:21:46Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > and his hair is some kind of Canadian road kill. I still think it’s some kind of brain-eating alien symbiont. I want him to release the paperwork showing what planet it’s from. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/50 "2011-04-27T15:22:33Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > Ah, so she’s a man, baby! Which only deepens the conspiracy. First transgender baby President. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/51 "2011-04-27T15:23:33Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I still think it’s some kind of brain-eating alien symbiont. I want him to release the paperwork showing what planet it’s from. Now you’re profiling. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/52 "2011-04-27T15:24:27Z")
Sigh. This will just have two effects: hard core birthers are exposed as being on the lunatic fringe, along with WTC-demolition theorists, moon landing hoaxers and Area 51 fans. They’ll just go to work on proving that today’s document is a forgery. Closer to reality, though, Republican candidates for office will wave the bloody shirt, that they “held Obama’s feet to the fire” and “forced him to confront the issue” – thereby maintaining their street cred on Looney Street. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/53 "2011-04-27T15:26:00Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Got to disagree. This was a good move on the WH’s part. The problem with crap like the birther thing is that it has a way of becoming a meme in a manner that important issues do not. It sticks in the back of people’s minds and rots there. This should shut up all but the looniest of the loons, and THAT will paint them more brightly for what they are than ever before. I’m not sure many people’s minds will be changed by this. It has already been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii. Several investigations were done on this including a big one by CNN that was aired not a day or two ago. As shown above people are already hemming and hawing and not believing it or moving his eligibility question to something else (e.g. he had “dual citizenship”). Donald Trump, the current GOP front-runner (FWIW at this point), is crowing about how he made the president do this. Better to let the GOP candidate hit the trail and keep spouting this. I’d love to see Trump go down this road in a debate. I’d love to see Trump force those running against him in the primary address this. ---
**Author:** ![Dilton\_Doiley\_Philosopher\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f1d935/32.png) [@Dilton\_Doiley\_Philosopher\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dilton_Doiley_Philosopher_King)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/54 "2011-04-27T15:27:22Z")
nvm… beaten to it ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/55 "2011-04-27T15:33:34Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > I guess that would disqualify Trump as well, since his mother was Scottish. I don’t think so, sadly. Even though his mother was a UK-born UK-citizen, at the time that he was born only a UK-born UK-citizen father would transmit UK citizen to his children. I’m reasonably familiar with the law, being in a similar situation to Mr Trump: my mother was born in England, but as I was born in Australia I only got Australian citizenship by birth. So Mr Trump is not a dual citizen, unless he’s acquired a second citizenship some other way. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/56 "2011-04-27T15:38:34Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > You call that a long form birth certificate? Looks nothing like a real one would look like. To be sure, you need to look at the Complete Extra Addendum of Live Birth for actual proof. Why won’t Obama release it? What is he hiding? [Next on the agenda is his Social Security card, apparently.](http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0411/Birthers_unmoved.html?showall) I think he should have waited until _much_ closer to the election to do this. There was always a chance otherwise that whoever won the GOP nomination would adopt Birtherism after seeing what it’s done for Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/57 "2011-04-27T15:42:32Z")
I like Fox News’ breaking news bulletin: “White House releases _what it says_ is President Obama’s long-form birth certificate”. I tend not to go in for Machiavellian political explanations, but if this raises Trump in the eyes of primary voters, or even compels him to run (as an independent!), the it really is a pretty deft piece of maneuvering. The true believers won’t be satisfied, but the middle will, and those still ranting about it during the GOP primaries will not be viewed well by independents, I would think. Basically the hope is that the 25-30% GOP base (the ones that show up in polls as not believing the president was born here) will be so adamant about this that they will either elect a loony, drive away the independents, or both. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/58 "2011-04-27T15:44:51Z")
S far as the dual citizenship angle, I think I read somewhere that the U.S. does not recognize dual citizenship at all. You are either a U.S. citizen or not. Now, you may very well also be a citizen of another country, but that has no bearing on U.S. law and how they view you. So, I don’t think the founders prevented someone with dual citizenship from being president. True they were against the concept, but they simply refused to acknowledge that a U.S. citizen could also hold another citizenship. Like I said, I’m pretty sure I remember reading that somewhere. But I could be wrong. No matter, we still have the Ayers’s cousin, the bookbinder who is known to have been in Hawaii last year. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/59 "2011-04-27T15:48:36Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > I like Fox News’ breaking news bulletin: “White House releases _what it says_ is President Obama’s long-form birth certificate”. That’s so precious. “White House Claims President Not a Kenyan” “White House Claims Hawaii A Real State” ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889/60 "2011-04-27T15:53:39Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > S far as the dual citizenship angle, I think I read somewhere that the U.S. does not recognize dual citizenship at all. You are either a U.S. citizen or not. Now, you may very well also be a citizen of another country, but that has no bearing on U.S. law and how they view you. So, I don’t think the founders prevented someone with dual citizenship from being president. True they were against the concept, but they simply refused to acknowledge that a U.S. citizen could also hold another citizenship. > > Like I said, I’m pretty sure I remember reading that somewhere. But I could be wrong. No matter, we still have the Ayers’s cousin, the bookbinder who is known to have been in Hawaii last year. This seems to be a decent answer to the above: > [@](#): > > It indeed used to be the case in the US that you couldn’t hold dual citizenship (except in certain cases if you had dual citizenship from birth or childhood, in which case some Supreme Court rulings – Perkins v. Elg (1939), Mandoli v. Acheson (1952), and Kawakita v. U.S. (1952) – permitted you to keep both). However, most of the laws forbidding dual citizenship were struck down by the US Supreme Court in two cases: a 1967 decision, Afroyim v. Rusk, as well as a second ruling in 1980, Vance v. Terrazas. > > Rules against dual citizenship still apply to some extent – at least in theory – to people who wish to become US citizens via naturalization. The Supreme Court chose to leave in place the requirement that new citizens must renounce their old citizenship during US naturalization. However, in practice, the State Department is no longer doing anything in the vast majority of situations where a new citizen’s “old country” refuses to recognize the US renunciation and continues to consider the person’s original citizenship to be in effect. > > The official US State Department policy on dual citizenship today is that the United States does not favor it as a matter of policy because of various problems they feel it may cause, but the existence of dual citizenship is recognized (i.e., accepted) as a fact of life. That is, if you ask them if you ought to become a dual citizen, they will recommend against doing it; but if you tell them you are a dual citizen, they’ll almost always say it’s OK. > > SOURCE: [http://www.richw.org/dualcit/faq.html#noway](http://www.richw.org/dualcit/faq.html#noway) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whitehouse-releases-obama-long-form-birth-certificate/579889.md?page=4)