Return to the Article

Obama's birth certificate and the real issues

The information in the certification may be identical as far as it goes to what's in the complete state records, but there are evidently many more details in the state records than are set forth in the certification. Contrary to the editors' description, those who want to see the full state record - the certificate or the so-called "vault copy" - are not on a wild-goose chase for a "secondary document cloaked in darkness." That confuses their motives (which vary) with what they've actually requested (which is entirely reasonable). Regardless of why people may want to see the vault copy, what's been requested is a primary document that is materially more detailed than what Obama has thus far provided.

In 2004, then-State Senator Obama trailed badly in third place just weeks before the Democratic primary for the open Illinois US Senate seat being vacated by Peter Fitzgerald. The leader was investment banker Blair Hull, who had spent about $40 million on an ad campaign that got him name recognition and a big lead in the polls.

Then the Chicago Tribune peeked into his bedroom, and revealed that he was an alleged wife beater. Hull's campaign collapsed and most of his support swung to Obama, who was a poorly funded candidate going nowhere until the Tribune story destroyed Hull's candidacy.

Next, the Tribune released supposedly sealed divorce documents concerning Republican nominee Jack Ryan, revealing he was a bit too kinky in his sexual tastes for his former wife. Ryan pulled out of the race, and the Illinois Republican Party, true to its decade long death wish, nominated Alan Keyes to oppose Obama.  Suddenly, the unknown State Senator was now US Senator Obama with a smashing 71% share of the vote.

Shortly after divorcing Barack Obama Sr., Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, married an Indonesian Muslim, Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo, whom she met - just as she had met Barack Sr. - when both were students at the University of Hawaii. At some point, Soetoro almost certainly adopted the youngster, who became known as "Barry Soetoro." Obama's lengthy, deeply introspective autobiographies do not address whether he was adopted by the stepfather whose surname he shared for many years, but in all likelihood that did happen in Hawaii, before the family moved to Jakarta.

Under Indonesian law, adoption before the age of six by an Indonesian male qualified a child for citizenship. According to Dreams from My Father, Obama was four when he met Lolo Soetoro; his mother married Soetoro shortly thereafter; and Obama was already registered for school when he and his mother relocated to Jakarta, where Soetoro was an oil-company executive and liaison to the Suharto government. That was in 1966, when Obama was five. Obama attended Indonesian elementary schools, which, in Suharto's police state, were generally reserved for citizens (and students were required to carry identity cards that matched student registration information). The records of the Catholic school Obama/Soetoro attended for three years identify him as a citizen of Indonesia. Thus Obama probably obtained Indonesian citizenship through his adoption by Soetoro in Hawaii. That inference is bolstered by the 1980 divorce submission of Ann Dunham and Lolo Soetoro, filed in Hawaii state court. It said "the parties" (Ann and Lolo) had a child (name not given) who was no longer a minor (Obama was 19 at the time). If Soetoro had not adopted Obama, there would have been no basis for the couple to refer to Obama as their child - he'd have been only Ann Dunham's child.