Last night at a town hall meeting in Lincolnton, when asked about President Obama's citizenship, one of North Carolina's representatives in Congress, Rep. Patrick McHenry said, "I haven't seen evidence one way or the other."
Apparently he missed it when candidate Obama handed over this birth certificate to the media. Guess he didn't read the birth announcements in two Hawaiian newspapers. Guess he's pandering to his base.
Listen Rep. McHenry, you ignorant vote-hungry politician, you know good and well that our president is an American citizen. The only reason you fanned the flames of doubt is because polls indicate there are a lot of confused North Carolinians who'll believe what they read in grocery store tabloids before they'll look into the facts behind an issue.
Here's a fact for you: President Obama is a citizen.
Here's another one: He won the election fair and square.
One more: The lead "birther" is a conspiracy theory junkie.
See, the problem here isn't that Obama hasn't shown the world his birth certificate. The problem is there is a group of people who aren't going to believe him no matter what he does because they simply don't like him and are still ticked that he's president.
Hawaiian officials have spoken: The birth certificate is real. The Supreme Court of the United States of America has refused to hear an appeal a common practice when a case doesn't have merit.
It's time to move on. This issue is dead.
Today, McHenry decided to sing a different tune:
Said McHenry in a statement this morning: As I stated last night, I have not carefully reviewed the evidence as a jurist would. However, from what I have read, I have absolutely no reason to question President Obama's citizenship. I anticipate that as a legal matter the courts will continue to come to the same conclusion.
FactCheck.org inspected the birth certificate themselves last year. Here's what they have to say:
In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document's authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is "fake."We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.
Update, Nov. 1: The director of Hawaiis Department of Health confirmed Oct. 31 that Obama was born in Honolulu.
Watch the Young Turks sum up the issue, discuss FactCheck.org's inspection, see a copy of the birth certificate in question and hear the truth: "Republicans are indifferent to facts. You can show them all the facts in the world. They don't care."
Further reading: Right-wingers are the new hippies. The Charlotte Observer's Tommy Tomlinson is calling them "Rippies." Read it here.