Barack Obama confirms he is born in US with birth certificate

Published on Wednesday 27 April 2011 21:46

PRESIDENT Barack Obama yesterday released a document confirming a personal detail that a quarter of Americans find hard to believe – that he was born in the US.

After years of conspiracy theory and innuendo, the Wcihite House finally bowed to pressure by publishing a long-form version of the president's birth certificate. It shows that at 7:24pm on 4 August, 1961, Barack Hussein Obama II was born at a hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In making the document public, officials hope to silence so-called "birthers" who believe that Mr Obama was born overseas, and as such is ineligible for the country's high office.

The conspiracy theory has returned to the fore in recent weeks, with businessman Donald Trump using the issue to rally support ahead of a potential run at the White House.

In an unscheduled press briefing, Mr Obama hit out at the "sideshows and carnival barkers" in an apparent swipe at the tycoon and reality TV star.

For his part, Mr Trump attempted to take credit for today's move by the White House.

He told reporters he was "really honoured to have played such a big role in hopefully getting rid of this issue".

He added that the president should have released the birth certificate "a long time ago".

And in a potential indication of the birthers next line of attack, Mr Trump said he would have to examine the document closely to ensure it was all that it seems.

"We have to look at it, we have to see is it real, is it proper, what's on it. But I hope it checks out beautifully," Mr Trump said.

Mr Obama has faced unfounded speculation over the place of his birth since 2008.

Neither the release of a certificate of live birth, nor contemporaneous announcements in The Honolulu Advertiser and The Honolulu Star-Bulletin were able to quieten the birther movement.

Only last week, a CBS/New York Times poll found one in four Americans – and 45 per cent of Republican voters – believe that Mr Obama was not born in the US.

The debate has raised uncomfortable questions over race-relations in the US, with some attributing the scepticism to unease amongst a fringe of white voters over an African-American being elected president.

Mr Obama has attempted to ride out the controversy, but diverted time to address it personally at a hastily-convened press conference at the White House yesterday.

TV networks broke from their scheduled programming to air the briefing, to the amazement of the president himself, who joked that he couldn't get channels to break for any other subject, such an national security.

Mr Obama said he had watched the debate with "bemusement".

Addressing both the public and the press, the president said: "We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We've got better stuff to do. I've got better stuff to do."

"We've got big problems to solve," Mr Obama added, referencing the US' fragile economic recovery, high unemployment, rising fuel prices and record national debt.

These issues will not be solved if politicians get side-tracked by trivial matters, Mr Obama said.

The call for a return to "serious" politics came on the same day the president visited Chicago to tape an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

The birth certificate released today is signed by Mr Obama's then 18-year-old mother (Stanley) Ann Dunham Obama, her delivery doctor and the local registrar at the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynaecological Hospital.

It states that his mother was born in Wichita, Kansas, and his father, Barack Hussein Obama, then 25, was born in Kenya.