‘We don’t have time for this silliness’

President Obama releases long form birth certificate

Compiled by MCJ Staff

After more than two years of persistent speculation and controversy surrounding his birth, the White House released the long form of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate Wednesday.

The signed-and-sealed Certificate of Live Birth says the president was born at Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu on August 4, 1961.

Wednesday’s release wasn’t the first time Obama provided documents proving his legality to lead the United States of America. During his 2008 presidential campaign, he released a standard short form copy of his birth certificate, which contained fewer details.

President Obama said he requested copies of his original birth certificate from Hawaii officials this week in hopes of quieting the controversy and eliminating the distraction, which he says has overshadowed the real issue: the debate over competing deficit reduction plans by him and the House Republicans.

The president also noted that the release of his birth certificate was consuming more news attention than that of issues surrounding the economy, gas prices and the pending White House announcement of appointments of a new Defense secretary and CIA chief.

“We’ve got some enormous challenges out there,” the president said Wednesday during a news conference. “I’m confident that the American people and America’s political leaders can come together in a bipartisan way and solve these problems like we always have. …(But) we’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we are distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.”

Despite Wednesday’s release of his long form birth certificate, the president said some skeptics and naysayers will still be unsatisfied and try to keep the issue alive.

To that he says: “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 and I’m confident that we can solve them. But we’re going to have to focus on them. Not on this.”