CNN's president, Jon Klein told staffers of Lou Dobbs Tonight that the controversy regarding the legitimacy of Mr. Obama's birth certificate now appeared to be a "dead" story.
In an email, he said that CNN researchers had determined that Hawaiian officials discarded paper documents in 2001. Because of that, Obama's long-form birth certificate no longer exists and the shorter certificate of live birth that has been made public is the sole official record.
[This brief pause for a “WTF?” moment]
State officials destroyed original legal documents? At least they would have scanned or microfiched the documents, wouldn’t any competent document handler? Would any government be so inept as to actually destroy legal papers like birth certificates, leaving only an abbreviated variation – a variation that doesn’t even contain all of the data that was resident on the hard-copy original. I find that impossible to believe, not even Chicago politicians would do anything that stupid.
But apparently Mr. Klein is wrong. Here is a statement from Hawaii Dept. of Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino, issued on October 31, 2008:
“I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures," Fukino said.
Fukino said she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate. Oh? The one that CNN says was destroyed?
Note that she refers to Obama’s “original” birth certificate (note that she didn’t say that they’d seen Obama’s “Hawaii” birth certificate, only the “original” birth certificate). Ever since Bill Clinton, I’ve learned to parse bureaucrat’s words for how they could be interpreted. If the birth certificate was from Kenya (or anywhere else, for that matter), Director Fukino’s statement would still be true, wouldn’t it? Why didn’t she refer to a Hawaii birth certificate? Her statement would be interpreted by Obama supporters as referring to a Hawaii document – but she didn’t say that, did she?
Now, if the original hard-copy certificate had been destroyed in 2001, what did the Director and the Registrar see? If all that remains is a digital image of the Certification of Live Birth, why would Obama spend close to a million dollars hiding something that has already been released?
Something stinks in Hawaii and it ain’t week-old poi.
If you're interested in a little more on the "birther" issue, here is a link to a nicely done piece by Zach Jones, writing for Austraila.to News:
Media Mischief