Was it really just to end the "silliness," as the president says -- or a canny move to make the GOP look "crazy"?
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama battled a steady stream of falsehoods -- about his religion, about ACORN, about his wife's alleged use of the pejorative "whitey" -- which led to his campaign's launch of its Fight the Smears website in June, to combat some of themore virulent rumors. On the site, it posted an item about Obama's birth certificate -- which included the short-form document -- along with a brief message:
Smears claiming Barack Obama doesn't have a birth certificate aren't actually about that piece of paper -- they're about manipulating people into thinking Barack Obama is not an American citizen. The truth is, Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii in 1961, a native citizen of the United States. Next time someone talks about Barack's birth certificate, make sure they see this page.
This, obviously, failed to pacify conspiracy theorists, who noted with relish the long- versus short-form distinction. As mentioned in a much-cited defense of the short-form certificate, posted in August 2008 by FactCheck.org, the state of Hawaii normally dispenses only short-form certificates of live birth -- and that document is an accepted form of identification, including by the U.S. State Department. When skeptics first began making noise about the long-form certificate in the summer of 2008, Obama spokeswoman Shauna Daly said it represented "all the records we could get our hands on."
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