Obama's birth letter: Is this thing for real?

In the ongoing quest to determine the exact birthplace of Barack Obama, the president's alleged personal effort to put the matter to rest is raising some interesting new questions.

The latest concerns focus on a letter purportedly sent by Obama to Honolulu's Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children in which the commander in chief outright declares his birth at the facility.

(Within an hour of the posting of this story, Kapi'olani removed the image of
the letter from its website.)

Barack Obama states in this letter on what appears to be White House stationery that he was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu. The letter was posted by the medical center on its website.

In the message dated Jan. 24, the freshly inaugurated president is said to explain that he's "a beneficiary of the excellence of Kapi'olani Medical Center – the place of my birth ... ."

The text of the letter was read aloud by U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, at the hospital's Centennial Dinner which took place on the evening of Jan. 24, and was recorded on video posted online by Kapi'olani, as well as excerpted now on YouTube.

Abercrombie even posted the information on his congressional website, saying the letter would be "settling the question once and for all."

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, posted this message on his website explaining President Obama settled the question of his actual birthplace "once and for all" merely by declaring it in a letter he read to the Kapi'olani Medical Center's Centennial Dinner in Honolulu Jan. 24, 2009.

WND can reveal the text of the letter read by Abercrombie has significant differences from what is touted online as President Obama's letter. In addition, the image online is not a picture of an actual paper letter, but is merely a computer-created likeness of a letter.

Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join nearly 400,000 others and sign up now!

According to the video, Abercrombie explains "that this is the first message to be sent from the Oval Office from President Barack Obama anywhere in the country."

A young girl sporting a T-shirt proclaiming "Born at Kapi'olani" Medical Center claps and sings as part of the facility's Centennial Dinner on Jan. 24, 2009

He then proceeds to read the apparent text of the letter directly from a podium stand to the audience of more than 700 people, including children wearing T-shirts proclaiming, "Born at Kapi'olani."

The video was edited by the hospital's production company to include just a few snippets from the letter, but the portions which are included all contain different wording than the letter displayed online.

1. Abercrombie reads: "Hawaii has always been home to me, and I'm pleased to take part in the celebration, even at a distance."

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But the actual text allegedly from Obama reads: "Hawaii has always been a home to me, and I'm pleased to take part in your celebration."

The most significant change here is Abercrombie's mysterious addition of "even at a distance," which appears nowhere in the letter. Ambercrombie also did not mention the article "a," changing "Hawaii has always been a home to me" to just "Hawaii has always been home to me." He also read "the celebration" instead of "your celebration."

2. Abercrombie reads: "As a beneficiary of the excellence of Kapi'olani Medical Center – after all, the place of my birth – I am pleased to add my voice to the chorus of supporters."

The actual text allegedly from Obama reads: "As a beneficiary of the excellence of Kapi'olani Medical Center – the place of my birth – I am pleased to add my voice to your chorus of supporters."

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Abercrombie added the phrase "after all" before the "the place of my birth," and read "the chorus of supporters" instead of "your chorus of supporters."

3. Abercrombie reads the conclusion as: "With great Aloha, President Barack Obama."

The actual conclusion allegedly from Obama reads: "Sincerely, Barack Obama."

Instead of "Sincerely," Abercrombie stated "With great Aloha." He also read the word "president" before Barack Obama's name, when it's not displayed in the letter.

"I have no doubt that Neil paraphrased and elaborated and digressed a little," said Abercrombie spokesman Dave Helfert when asked about the large number of differences. He indicated he personally had not seen any letter from the president but presumes the congressman was just reading it on behalf of the hospital.

Helfert admits some people have contacted the office "in an insane and nonsensical rage" suggesting Obama "was born somewhere else and snuck into the United States."

He says he can't understand why the public is demanding such a level of proof of natural-born citizenship, and when asked why he thought Obama just doesn't end the controversy by releasing his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate displaying the name of the hospital and doctor, Helfert said he couldn't speak for the president, but "if that were me, I'd tell people to stick it in their ear. It's none of their business. The documents online have been certified to show he was born in the U.S."

"If you had a picture of him in the hospital [delivery room] with a hospital sign behind him, there would be a lot of people who wouldn't believe it, [thinking] that it was trick photography or something nefarious," he added. "If the hand of God appeared in the sky to write the birth certificate, they wouldn't believe it."

In a local news report covering the Centennial Dinner, KHNL-TV anchor Diane Ako stated, "Even President Barack Obama was helped by the hospital. He was born there." But she did not expand on that by providing any evidence.

Regarding what is portrayed to be the letter itself, what is displayed online is not a photo or scanned image of an actual letter sent by regular mail.

It is a pieced-together likeness of a letter using HTML code that routinely builds websites.

Viewers can check this by several methods, including going to the original webpage, highlighting the "letter" there with a cursor, and noting the White House letterhead as well as Barack Obama's signature are both individual images.

Dragging a cursor over the White House letterhead reveals the .jpg image

Dragging a cursor over Barack Obama's purported signature reveals the .jpg image

Readers can also view the HTML source code of the page. WND has taken a screenshot of the code where the text of the letter is displayed:

A screen shot of the source code, indicating what is touted as a letter is not an image of any actual letter, but merely a computer-generated likeness of a letter.

It also does not appear to be showing either a presidential or White House seal at the top.

WND contacted both the White House and Kapi'olani Medical Center numerous times to authenticate the existence, authorship and contents of the letter and confirm the true birth hospital of the president, but neither responded.

To date, Obama has not revealed his original long-form,
hospital-generated "Certificate of Live Birth" that includes details
such as the name of the medical facility and the doctor who delivered
him.

Here is an actual Hawaii birth certificate from 1963 (the
same era as Obama's birth), which while redacted includes detailed
information documenting a birth, including the name of the birth
hospital and the attending physician. Beneath it is the short-form
"Certification of Live Birth" offered by President Obama as proof of
his Hawaiian birth. It is possible to have been born outside of Hawaii
and still obtain the latter form, but not the former:

Long-form birth certificate from state of Hawaii (Image courtesy Philip
Berg)

Here is the "Certification of Live Birth" presented by
Obama:

Short-form "Certification of Live
Birth"

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's
status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1,
states, "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 of the lawsuits question whether he was actually
born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's
American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to
confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship
through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom
at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the
framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural
born.

Want
to turn up the pressure to learn the facts? Get your signs and
postcards asking for the president's birth certificate documentation from the "Where's the birth certificate?" store

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend
sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a
state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.

Among the cases have been several from Democrat Philip
Berg, who has alleged that not only is Obama ineligible to be president, he
was unqualified to be the senator from Illinois and should be prosecuted under
the False Claims Act.

The key question in the dispute also is being raised on billboards nationwide.

"Where's The Birth Certificate?" billboard in
Pennsylvania

The billboard campaign follows an ongoing petition
campaign launched several months ago by WND Editor and Chief Executive
Officer Joseph Farah.

They are intended to raise public awareness of the fact
that Obama has never released the standard "long-form" birth certificate that
would show which hospital he was born in, the attending physician and establish
that he truly was born in Hawaii, as his autobiography maintains.

Send a contribution to support the national billboard campaign that
asks a simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"