Obama - Remove all doubt: Release information

Remove all doubt: Release information
Editor:
Lebanon Daily News
http://www.ldnews.com/opinion/ci_11707719

Updated: 02/14/2009 10:09:55 PM EST


The theme of Barack Obama’s administration is one of truth, honesty and transparency.

But he remains the only U.S. president to not release records of his education, passport, medical care (but for a single sheet of paper) and the long form of his birth certificate — the so-called vault version.

Obama released to two Web sites a scanned version of the short form — the Certificate of Live Birth. It shows neither the hospital where he was born nor the attending physician. The difference between the two forms can be seen at sites.google.com/site/obamabirth.

Since 2001, Hawaii’s health department has not normally released the vault form. Obama, as president, can have this done and end all controversy on the question. In a closed-door session, competent court authorities could confirm that he has complied with the constitutional requirements of natural-born citizenship.

The controversy rages because he has not released this information and has used three law firms to block the release.

Several other facts fuel the controversy. Hawaii in the past has permitted foreign births to be recorded on its certificates. An example of such is the Hawaiian birth certificate of Sun Yat-Sen, the first president of the Republic of China, who was actually born in Guangdong, China, yet obtained a Hawaiian birth certificate.
Although Obama’s birth was announced in the local newspaper, there is said to be no record in any Honolulu hospital of a patient with the name of his mother, Stanley Ann Obama, (nee Dunham). Yet people in Kenya claim to have either witnessed the birth personally or to have seen the newborn.

Aside from where he was born, there is the continuing question of whether a child born to a (minor?) U.S. citizen and a foreign citizen (Obama’s father was a British citizen of Kenya) fills the constitutional requirement of a natural-born citizen. “Black’s Law Dictionary” defines a natural-born citizen, and it is not someone born under two nations’ jurisdictions.

We have been told that this is a momentous occasion for our country. Should the annoying and bothersome detail of violating the Constitution matter?
This is a country of law, to which not only the common people are subject. We have lived through presidents who have considered themselves above the law. Should the voices of those who ask that the Constitution and the laws of our land be esteemed be silenced and derided?

My hope is that this president will change his position on this matter, if his administration is to be one of truth, honesty and transparency.
For some, only full disclosure will suffice. Others consider the issue irrelevant. Fine, but not everyone wants to go quietly where he is taking us.

Patricia Diefenderfer