Caller: Hello, can you hear me?
ASK: Yes, we hear you loud and clear.
Caller: OK. Just checking. I'm "Spackle" in the chat room. And I have a question for Greg, which is, doesn't Terry have a daughter that was born in Hawaii?
Greg: He does. He was at Schofield Barracks for many years, at the military base there as a physician. His daughter was born in Hawaii ...
Caller: So I'm wondering why ... it probably would have made his appeal to the public more powerful if he had gone ahead and gotten a long form birth certificate for his daughter.
If he could order one today, y'know, like everybody wants Obama to do, and pay ten or fifteen bucks to order the long form birth certificate, and then show it to people and say, "I got my own daughter's long form birth certificate, how come Obama can't get his?" Did he ever try that?
Greg:
You know, he did, and I actually ... he tried to do it through the mail, and I actually tried to do it personally when I was over there, because I've spent time in Hawaii too, and the Office of Vital Statistics was closed that Friday.
But I will tell you that he's ... as a physician over there, he's seen numerous birth certificates, and that Certificate [sic] of Live Birth is something he'd never seen before, nor is it a birth certificate.
And then he personally signed off on ... he's been the delivery physician, not in Hawaii but at Fort Bragg ...
Caller: Wait a minute. Are you saying the Certification of Live Birth is not a birth certificate?
Greg: I'm saying it's not the original birth certificate, or a copy of the original birth certificate.
Caller: No, it's not. It's not. I agree with that but I mean ... in any event,
so he never actually did pursue it and try to get a copy of his own daughter's long form birth certificate.
Greg:
You know, I honestly can't answer that. I know she has one. I know she has one, just like all birth certificates, you know, all birth certificates that I've signed have location and doctor's name and other people ... they have information on them. And so I know that his daughter has one. But yeah, no I don't know if he's personally got one or could do that, in any type of ...
Would it be compelling evidence? I think you're probably right.
Caller: I just posted a link in the chat room.
(
http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl)
And if you go to that link, the Hawaii government state website says you can't get a long form birth certificate any more ... even if ... and that's a link to a program they do for Native Hawaiians, y'know, ethnic Hawaiians, that if you're more than 50% ethnic Hawaiian, they try to help you with all kinds of programs, it's called the Hawaiian Homelands Program.
And they say they prefer the long form birth certificate if you have one, but they explain on the website that they don't give them out any more, and that if you don't have your long form birth certificate right now, if you apply for a birth certificate, you're gonna get a COLB, a Certification of Live Birth, just like the one that Obama published ...
... and that's why I was wondering, the state of Hawaii ... that even for people they're trying to help because they're ethnic Hawaiian, if they can't get a long form birth certificate, and if Terry couldn't get a long form birth certificate for his own daughter, then how is President Obama supposed to get a long form birth certificate for himself?
Greg: Right.
ASK: Well, that's a good question. Yeah.
Greg: Well, I think that's something that's fairly recent within the last few years, because it's always been ... before ... y'know I understand we've all gone to electronic records now, but ...
Caller: Right. In the state of Washington, the only birth certificate that you get is a little card that fits in your wallet.
Greg: Um hm.
Caller: And I live in North Carolina, and in North Carolina all you can get is a short form birth certificate too. So I just don't understand how President Obama could get ... unless they put him above the law that says that you can't get a long form birth certificate any more. I don't see how he could possibly get a long form birth certificate.
Marco: Andrea, this is Marco, let me just address that, because we're getting in the last few minutes, there's a few more things to cover.
ASK: Yep. Yep.
Marco: This is one of the issues, and I appreciate your comments in fact I think it's a very clever idea, but what we're missing is that the birth certificate is just part of the equation. As Greg just indicated, it's not even the physical sheet of paper, though everyone's expected to have one in this country ...