Shows Us Your Birth Certificate, Sen. Obama

The news media should not let up until Sen. Barack Obama produces a birth certificate which proves his status as a "natural born U.S. citizen." The U.S. Constitution requires a person to be a natural born citizen in order to serve as President. The St. Petersburg Times attempted to obtain a copy of Obama's birth certificate from the State of Hawaii, where Obama is reported to have been born on August 4, 1961. The state does not make birth certificates available to the public and Obama's campaign refused to furnish the newspaper a copy of it. Obama's late mother, Ann Dunham, was a U.S. citizen. His late father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a Kenyan citizen. The National Review's Jim Geraghty notes that the Obama campaign referenced the birth certificate in a Fact Check on Obama's relationship with William Ayers.

The Obama campaign will no doubt complain that requests for a copy of his birth certificate are unfair and racist, but Sen. John McCain, a decorated war veteran who spent 5 years in an enemy prison camp, had to defend his "natural born citizen" status earlier this year after the media raised questions about his birth on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone. The U.S. Senate later declared McCain a "natural born citizen". Obama's birth status may raise similar legal issues. To be blunt, the Obama family tree is somewhat complicated. Although the family says his mother was married to his father, his father never obtained a divorce from a prior marriage in Kenya and no official record of their marriage has been produced, a fact acknowledged by Obama. Obama has added to the confusion himself by claiming that his parents were united as a result of the march on Selma, Alabama. The march didn't take place until 1965, nearly four years after Obama's reported birth date in Honolulu. By virtue of his father's Kenyan citizenship, Obama is also a citizen of Kenya, giving him dual citizenship. There is no record of Obama officially renouncing his Kenyan citizenship. His mother remarried and moved to Indonesia with Obama when he was six years old. He returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his grandparents.

Throughout his life, Obama has no doubt been required to provide a birth certificate, such as when he applied for a social security card, a passport or a driver's license or registered to vote. In my practice of immigration law, I must ask my clients to furnish a copy of their birth certificate in order to prove to the government their eligibility to sponsor a family member for immigration to the U.S. Surely Sen. Obama would not be unduly burdened by simply producing a copy of his birth certificate to prove he is a natural born citizen as required of any person seeking to hold the high office of President of the United States. Sen. McCain established his constitutional qualification to hold the office. It's time for Sen. Obama to do the same.

UPDATE: The Obama campaign produced his birth certificate via the Daily Kos--an odd choice of media to release the information given the hate America crowd that relishes there. The Left nuts are all laughing it up, but it is a constitutional prerequisite to holding the office. The Obama campaign's initial refusal to produce it should be the real issue, but you can bet the Left won't see it that way. This would be the same people who were seriously arguing a few months ago that decorated war veteran and former prisoner of war John McCain should be disqualified from holding the office because he was born the son of a Navy admiral on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone.