A New York woman quoted as saying she "remembers" the birth of Barack Obama and who was hailed as independent evidence of the president's eligibility to occupy the Oval office has told WND that's not exactly how things happened.
Instead, she told WND she could provide no specifics about the birth.
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The interview by the Buffalo News with Barbara Nelson was cited by the Democratic Underground website under the headline "Independent Confirmation of Obama's Birth."
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WND has reported on the many lawsuits filed in recent months that allege in various ways that Obama does not meet the "natural born citizen" clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which reads, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
Some allege his birth took place in Kenya, and his mother was a minor at the time of his birth – too young to confer American citizenship. The cases argue Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan citizen subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time and would have handed down British citizenship.
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There also are questions raised about Obama's move to Indonesia when he was a child and his attendance at school there when only Indonesian citizens were allowed and on what nation's passport did he travel to Pakistan in the 1980s.
Obama supporters jumped on the Buffalo paper's story when Nelson said she may be the only person left "who specifically remembers his birth."
The report said: "When Barack Hussein Obama places his hand on the Bible today to take the
oath of office as 44th president of the United States, Barbara Nelson of
Kenmore will undoubtedly think back to the day he was born. It was Aug. 4,
1961, at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu."
It continued: "'I may be the only person left who specifically remembers his birth. His parents are gone, his grandmother is gone, the obstetrician who delivered him is gone,' said Nelson, referring to Dr. Rodney T. West, who died in February at the age of 98."
But Nelson told WND her knowledge of the birth came only from a physician, Dr. Rodney West, with whom she was dining, and the subject was brought up because of the mother's novel name and the "musical" name of the son, Barack Hussein Obama. She told WND the conversation also was memorable because Obama's mother's name was Stanley, named after her father, and the son also was named after his father.
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However, Nelson told WND today, "I don't know in what capacity [West] knew about this particular birth."
She said the birth and the unusual names arose in a conversation with West, a leader in the development of obstetrics services throughout Hawaii before Obama was born.
However, she said the assumption that West delivered the baby, or that she said that, were just wrong.
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"Being one of the leaders in obstetrics in Hawaii, he could have had physical or informational access to all of the obstetrics [on the islands]," she told WND.
The discussion centered on the "peculiarity of a woman named Stanley," she said.
"I just said tell me something [that has happened]," she said. "And he says Stanley had a baby, and that's something to write home about."
He also told her the father was the first African student at the University of Hawaii, "another interesting local thing," Nelson told WND.
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"[West] never said to me, 'I delivered a baby,'" Nelson said.
She said she then recalled the name and circumstances 10 years later when the baby's father, now an official in Kenya, returned to Hawaii to speak.
Nelson told WND "to those of us from Hawaii," there aren't any questions or issues about Obama's birth.
"Hawaii is knee-deep in people who know the whole Obama history," she said.
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A blogger at ObamaCitizenshipFacts.org pointed out that West could not possibly have delivered Obama since, according to a Hawaiian Pearl Harbor history website, he retired in 1956, five years before Obama's birth. "December of l956, after delivering at least 5,000 babies ... he retired from the practice of medicine," said the Pearl Harbor Survivors Project website.
"Hope this is helpful in squelching another convenient remembered memory put
out there by the O-Bot crowd to try and substantiate his birth in Hawaii without showing an 'original, long-form, birth certificate known as a CERTIFICATE of
Live Birth,' not the phony image of the 'CERTIFICATION of Live Birth'
computer
form he has been touting as proof," the blogger wrote.
Nelson confirmed that West, who died only months ago, spent a great deal of his life in medical management, working with the major obstetrics providers in Hawaii, serving the American Medical Association in the state and directing one of the obstetrics clinics.
Nelson said she was "appalled" at being caught up in the arguments over Obama's birth.
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"All I have was a very nice, wholesome story," she said.
The lawsuits over Obama's eligibility, however, remain pending, and commenters on the blog site agreed they should.
"I want to know why obama is fighting to not show his birth certificate and until he does then I reserve judgement (sic) on his eligibility," said one.
One case, handled by lawyers including Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation, is seeking Obama's school records from Occidental College, which could reveal if Obama attended class on aid intended for foreign students.
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Another lawyer working on similar allegations, Philip J. Berg, has written to Congress seeking an investigation, while California lawyer Orly Taitz's filings have been before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Berg, whose information is on his ObamaCrimes.com website, said the issue isn't going to disappear.
Others agreed.
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"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void," argues a California case brought on behalf of Ambassador Alan Keyes, also a presidential candidate. "Americans will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal."
Obama has claimed in his autobiography and elsewhere that he was born in Hawaii in 1961 to parents Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Kenyan national, and Stanley Ann Dunham, a minor. But details about which hospital handled the birth and other details provided on the complete birth certificate have been withheld by Obama despite lawsuits and public demands for release.
WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi went to both Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign stated, Obama hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.
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The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?