US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has taken the extraordinary step of publicly releasing his complete birth certificate in an effort to kill off conspiracy theories that have bedevilled him since the 2008 election.
“Birthers” believe that Mr Obama was born in Kenya and that his family, including his maternal grandparents, conspired to issue fake birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers so that their African grandson could become an American citizen. Only US-born citizens can be president.
Mr Obama said he was moved to release the information because the continuing debate was distracting the nation from the serious problems it was confronting, including its long-term deficit reduction plans and rising petrol prices.
“We are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers,” Mr Obama said yesterday. “We do not have time for this kind of silliness.”
The White House’s decision to release the “long-form” birth certificate was greeted by self-congratulatory comments from Donald Trump.
The New York property magnate had almost single-handedly made the fringe conspiracy theory a mainstream topic of conversation in a series of media appearances to discuss his potential run for president as a Republican candidate.
For months the dominant view in Washington has been that the “birther” issue indirectly benefited the White House because it made some of the president’s critics on the right look unhinged.
Questioning the birthplace of the nation’s first black president appeared to some, such as the political television host Chris Matthews, to be an accusation tinged by racism.
The Republican leadership in Congress and many conservatives, including media figures such as Bill O’Reilly on Fox News, distanced themselves from the “birther” theory.
However, most stopped short of dismissing the allegations, perhaps for fear of ostracising an important activist element of the Republican party.
The White House’s calculation about the impact of the conspiracy theory on the president appears to have changed as Mr Obama has geared up his re-election campaign.
A CBS/ New York Timespoll showed last week that 25 per cent of voters did not believe Mr Obama was born in the US, while another 18 per cent said they did not know.
“I think the White House just got sick and tired of being bothered by this non-issue,” Charlie Cook, a non-partisan political analyst, said. “The opinion shifted from seeing it as insulting to seeing it as a distraction.” – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)