Obama Birth Certificate Issue Goes to Hawaii Supreme Court

Brian Cherry, writing for The New Media Journal, says "The question regarding Barack Obama's eligibility to run for President based on questions regarding his status as natural born United States citizen has reached the Hawaiian Supreme Court."

Andy Martin, an Illinois journalist and Democrat, has petitioned the court to expedite the release of Obama's birth records so that the issue can be put to rest once and for all. Cherry writes, "For months there has been speculation about Barack's birth status among other issues associated with his birth certificate. This has been helped along by the campaign's reluctance to produce uncontestable records of the Senators birth and status as a natural born citizen of the United States. When the Obama campaign did release a scan of Obama's birth certificate its noticeable lack of an embossed seal among other inconsistencies with proper Hawaiian birth certificates simply fueled the speculation of critics."

Now, it's no secret that I'm anti-Obama and that I would love to see John McCain win the presidency on November 4. But this particular issue has always struck me as kind of strange. The first question that pops into my head is, "Isn't there a process for determining eligibility as soon as someone files the paperwork to become a candidate?" Wouldn't this responsibility fall on the shoulders of the FEC?

Mr. Cherry contributes to the continued speculation about the birth certificate, saying, "Presidential candidate Barack Obama has also indirectly interjected himself into the situation. During the same week that Mr. Martin's request was made to the Hawaiian Supreme court, Barack is suspending his campaign for a few days in order to visit his sick grandmother in Hawaii. Unnamed sources claim that he is bringing along a team of lawyers on this visit to an ailing relative. The Obama campaign has not yet answered our query regarding whether Barack has brought a legal team with him to Hawaii."

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if he brought lawyers with him. We're less than two weeks out from an election and I imagine every word he utters and every action he takes is based on legal advice.

Politifact.com, a fact check web site, says, "Unlike other documents, Hawaii birth certificates aren't public record. Only family members can request copies, so when the campaign declined to give us one, we were stalled." After the Obama campaign released a copy of the birth certificate, however, Politifact says they went a step further: "We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real. 'It's a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,' spokesman Janice Okubo told us." Still, questions persisted.

Politifact says, "When the official documents were questioned, we went looking for more answers." "If this document is forged," Politifact says, "a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud. They have done it with conspiring officials at the Hawaii Department of Health, the Cook County (ILL.) Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Illinois Secretary of State's office, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois and many other government agencies."

There are plenty of things about Senator Obama that concern me, but his birth certificate is not one of them.