As the Obama birth-conspiracy story somehow continues to swirl, today comes word that the man with the most to gain from any revelations about Obama’s origins, John McCain, couldn’t find anything. “To the extent that we could, we looked into the substantive side of these allegations,” Trevor Potter, a general counsel to the McCain campaign, told the Washington Independent. “We never saw any evidence that then-Senator Obama had been born outside of the United States. We saw rumors, but nothing that could be sourced to evidence. There were no statements and no documents that suggested he was born somewhere else. On the other side, there was proof that he was born in Hawaii. There was a certificate issued by the state’s Department of Health, and the responsible official in the state saying that he had personally seen the original certificate. There was a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser, which would be very difficult to invent or plant 47 years in advance.” [Washington Independent]