There was a recent clamor about Obama’s birth certificate, which no one had yet seen, the major one being proof of whether Obama is a “natural born citizen,” as required by the Constitution. The Campaign has not produced it and the internet bubbled with intrigue on the subject until Daily Kos posted what appeared to be a copy of the birth certificate issued by the State of Hawaii.
Here it is. A larger version is at the Kos link.
This satisfied most people who even knew about the issue.
Back in 2004, the proof of Dan Rather’s phony documents concerning President Bush’s service in Texas National Guard came from a blogger with a talent for spotting forgeries. He knew that the font on the documents had not been used until after the dates the documents were allegedly typed.
So what about Obama’s “Birth Certificate?” I have no idea if it is a fake or not. Though Kos says he got it from the Obama Campaign, to my knowledge the Campaign has not allowed Hawaii to release a copy directly to the press, which sounds pretty easy to do, and would resolve the matter.
A blogger named Polarik over at Townhall says
I’ve been working with computers, printers, and typewriters for over 20 years, and given a set of printed letters, I can discern what kind of device made them. Printer output is quite different from the text created by a graphics program, and even if a document looks “official,” it may not be.
He goes on to say that the Daily Kos “Birth Certificate” was quite clearly produced with a computer graphics program and was not simply text printed out on a pre-printed certificate form.
As one example, comparing the Obama certificate (top) to the author’s own real Birth Certificate (bottom), you can see that Obama’s has distorted pixels around the letters and the background image between the letters disappears. On the real one, there is no halo of distorted pixels around the letters and you can see the background pattern between the letters. I have left in the author’s explanation between the two images but you have to click the image to make it easier to read.
The author goes on to show how the borders of the document were created using overlapping rectangles instead of actual lines.
It may be the case that Hawaii uses a graphics program to create its Birth Certificates, in which case, the author just proved it as a fact. All Obama has to do to make this go away is tell Hawaii to release an authentic copy. Failing to do so will only make people continue to wonder what he is hiding.
Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room