Here's the proper response to the "birther" question, Governor...

I'm certain he was born in Hawaii. But it is quite clear that there either does or should exist an original birth certificate form prepared at his birth and submitted to the vital records registry of Hawaii. This has not been released, presumably because the President has not authorized its release. From a legal standpoint, the computer-generated extract of Hawaii's records which he made public during the campaign suffices to establish him as a natural-born citizen of the United States, as far as I'm concerned. But there's no reason for him to refuse to release the original document, and we generally require abundant disclosure of otherwise private data by our Presidents (tax returns, etc.), so I think he should disclose it, or at least authorize Hawaii to confirm or deny that it exists at all in any form.

Which is why I phrased what I think she should have said as I did. It is true that he has refused to release that, and his refusal to do so is what allows the issue to continue to have any legs at all. If he would release it, then one could definitively shut down ALL of the birthers' rhetoric with the truth, not merely a statement as I have just made, that the legal evidence is sufficient.

Also, as you note the hard-core people (the same sort of people who still believe the Clintons killed Vince Foster, or who truly believe that Dick Cheney started the Iraq war to help Halliburton) will not be convinced of anything regarding Obama. Thus, my phrasing is also an attempt to explain to them why, whether they are right or wrong, THEY should want to move past the issue. They're not going to be convinced to drop it by arguments over the legality of the computer record extract; explaining how they are making socialism in this country more likely by causing a distraction, that has a better chance, in my opinion, of getting them to get off the issue.

actually, I agree with her. The moment she stepped onto the platform with McCain, Palin had to deal with the most ridiculous accusations against her. Not because they were true, but were cooked up by a frightened Democratic base who thought this woman would take away Obama's moment of glory (and theirs too) by encouraging Republicans to vote. So she had every right to mention this conspiracy over Obama - she too has been a victim of several.

He did all that's required of anyone to legally establish his birth in Hawaii. He just decided not to feed the burner of the runaway nutburger freight train.

He did precisely the opposite. By resisting these suits on jurisdictional grounds—which, alas, always seem to be pejoratively dismissed as "technical" grounds by laymen—instead of just filing the birth certificate with the courts, he fed the fire. I warned it would happen. IIRC, one of these cases is proceeding to discovery in California, and I suspect that the reason is that the judge there is smart enough to understand that the only chance of putting this to rest is to require Obama to file the certificate. The case can then be dismissed on standing grounds, so everyone will be happy.

Now, of course, I agree that some of this nonsense will persist. The crazies are, well, crazy. But if a court accepts the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate, or at least offers itself as a proxy through which that material can be entered into the public record and validated, you will detach the core group of crazies who positively believe he wasn't born here from their fellow-travelers who merely have doubts. The latter constitute the bulk of the "movement," I have no doubt, just as the opposition to climate change legislation comprises a large cloud of people who doubt AGW orbiting a small nucleus of people who positively reject it.

And going forward, I continue to agree with Roxanna de Luca's prescription on this point.