Hawaii governor vows to silence Obama birth skeptics

HONOLULU (AP) -- Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie wants to find a way to release more information about President Barack Obama's Hawaii birth and dispel conspiracy theories that he was born elsewhere.

Abercrombie was a friend of Obama's parents and knew him as a child, and is deeply troubled by the effort to cast doubt on the president's citizenship.

The newly elected governor will ask the state attorney general's office and health officials about how he can make public more of Obama's birth documentation from Aug. 4, 1961, spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Tuesday.

"He had a friendship with Mr. Obama's parents, and so there is a personal issue at hand," Dela Cruz said. "Is it going to be done immediately? No, the first thing on our list is the economy."

It's unclear what Abercrombie could do because Hawaii's privacy laws have long barred the release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who doesn't have a tangible interest.

Hawaii's health director said last year and in 2008 that she had seen and verified Obama's original vital records, and birth notices in two Honolulu newspapers were published within days of Obama's birth at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu.

So-called "birthers" claim Obama is ineligible to be president because they say there's no proof he was born in the United States, with many of the skeptics questioning whether he was actually born in Kenya, his father's home country.

"What bothers me is that some people who should know better are trying to use this for political reasons," Abercrombie told the Los Angeles Times last week. "Maybe I'm the only one in the country that could look you right in the eye right now and tell you, 'I was here when that baby was born.'"