A number of folks running around in the 9/12 and Tea Party circles are really pushing the Obama birth certificate issue again. My advice: Just don't do it.

I only needed to do about 2 hours of research into the issue.

The basics are as follows:

• In Hawaii, when you request a duplicate birth certificate, you get a "short-form" version. This is the state's standard practice.
• Hawaii considers this "short-form" version as a legal document for any government items, such as obtaining a driver's license.
• The person in Hawaii's state government that is in-charge of maintaining the records has said that he's personally viewed the long-form, and that Obama's status is a natural born citizen. (He can't release the form himself due to privacy concerns - and that's a good thing)

Therefore, I have concluded that Obama is very likely a US citizen, and I don't think the argument wins anyone over anyway. All you're doing is feeding red-meat to the ones already in your camp.

And, if you make this a core part of your argument, and then the long-form is either leaked or found or whatever, proving you wrong, it will be used to discredit all of your other, legitimate complaints.

So please, don't make the birth certificate the core of your complaints. Talk about socialism, government forcing people to do things, whatever your legitimate, provable pet-peeve is. There's plenty "wrong" with the direction of the country without focusing on something that could be proven false at any time.