In a creative attempt at killing two birds with one stone narrowing ever so slightly the state’s $800 million budget shortfall while finally putting the birther conspiracies to rest lawmakers in Hawaii are planing to introduce a bill that would allow anyone to receive a copy of President Obama’s birth certificate for a $100 fee. (Technically you can get the birth certificate of any “person who is a candidate for, or elected to, a public office that requires the person to be a United States citizen,” but come on.) So how will this end birtherism as we know it?
“If it passes, it will calm the birthers down,” the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Rida Cabanilla, told The Associated Press. “All these people are still doubting it because they don’t want the birth certificate from Obama. They want it from our state office.”
Actually, the reason birthers haven’t been convinced by copies of Obama’s birth certificate is not that they came from Obama instead of the state office; it’s that they were copies. Anyone can forge a copy. Birthers won’t believe the certificate is real until each one of them has the opportunity to personally examine, touch, smell, and possibly taste it in its original form. And let’s be honest, even that wouldn’t satisfy them.
Hawaii Dems move to calm ‘birthers,’ make Obama’s birth records available [Politico]
Hawaii bill would charge $100 for President Obama’s birth records, effort to silence ‘birthers’ [NYDN]
