Obama’s birth record: Is issue settled?

April 28, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON

Now the big question is how many Americans will reject the official birth record proving that Barack Obama was born in the United States and still insist on believing — despite every fact in evidence — that he was born in a foreign land and thus not eligible under the Constitution to be president?

Some fringe of the nation’s population almost surely will never be convinced, analysts said, but Obama evidently felt enough pressure to try to take the issue off the table after letting it fester for more than two years.

On Wednesday the president released the long-form version of his Hawaii birth certificate.

His lawyer formally requested two certified copies April 22 and picked them up Tuesday.

“Yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, August 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital,” Obama said in the White House briefing room, looking somewhat incredulous to be making such a statement.

Hawaiian officials, a short-form official birth certificate, local newspaper reports of his birth and fact-checking expeditions by news media long ago had confirmed his Hawaiian birth, but some conservative politicians and media commentators refused to accept it.

“Normally, I would not comment on something like this,” Obama said, but he said he felt compelled to try to put the issue to rest after questions about his birth certificate drowned out news coverage of the deficit crisis.

“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” the president said. “We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.”

It was a weird controversy to dog a president who is mired in military conflicts in three Muslim lands as the Arab world writhes in turmoil and the U.S. economy remains shaky, but it wouldn’t go away.

A USA Today poll released this week found that just 38 percent of Americans believed that Obama definitely was born in the United States.

Analysts disagreed over the episode’s political significance.

Aides to the president denied that Obama feared that the controversy could hurt his re-election bid.