Obama Releases ‘Long-Form’ Birth Certificate
Doug Mills/The New York Times President Obama said he had decided to release his full birth certificate because the country did not have “time for this kind of silliness.”
President Obama on Wednesday posted online a copy of his “long-form” birth certificate from the State of Hawaii, hoping to finally end a long-simmering conspiracy theory among some conservatives who have asserted that he was not born in the United States and was not a legitimate president.
The birth certificate, which is posted on the White House Web site, shows that Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu and is signed by state officials and his mother.
“The president believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country,” Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, wrote on the Web site Wednesday morning. Mr. Pfeiffer said on the site that Mr. Obama had authorized officials in Hawaii, who had routinely made available a shorter version of the birth certificate, to release the longer, more complete document.
Mr. Obama said Wednesday that he had decided to release the document in an effort to end the “silliness” about his birth that threatened to distract the country from serious issues.
“Over the last two and a half years, I have watched with bemusement,” he said in brief remarks at the White House. “I’ve been puzzled by the degree to which this thing just kept on going.”
Mr. Obama said there would be a “segment of people for which, no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest.” But he said that he was “speaking to the vast majority of the American people as well as to the press — we do not have time for this kind of silliness.”
The president said he decided to release the “long-form” birth certificate two weeks ago, after news reports about the controversy dominated a week in which Republicans released their 2012 budget and Mr. Obama gave a speech on the nation’s debt.
“This is going to generate huge and serious debates, important debates,” Mr. Obama said of those issues. “That’s how democracy is supposed to work.”
But, he added that “we are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted.”
“We are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other,” he added. “We are not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts.”…
Copyright, Blaise APLOGAN, 2010,© Bienvenu sur Babilown
Toute republication de cet article doit en mentionner et l’origine et l’auteur sous peine d’infraction
Commentaires