Hawaii gov. seeks to combat birthers

HONOLULU — For once the conspiracy theorists who believe Barack Obama was not born in the United States and the president's defenders are on the same page.

Neil Abercrombie, who was a friend of Obama’s parents when the president was a baby, has only been governor of Hawaii for less than three weeks, but he’s said in interviews this week that he’s already initiated a process to make policy changes that would allow Hawaii to release additional evidence that Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961.

“What bothers me is that some people who should know better are trying to use this for political reasons,” Abercrombie told Mike Memoli of the Tribune Co. “Maybe I’m the only one in the country that could look you right in the eye right now and tell you, ‘I was here when that baby was born.’”

But the initiative could backfire on the new governor, a Democrat who faces a $71 million budget deficit and a shrinking education system. Releasing additional documentation about Obama’s birth in Honolulu — which has been independently verified — could do more to stir up the ‘birthers’ than quiet them down. The movement has used such documentation in the past to bolster their conspiracy theory.

Abercrombie’s comments come as the "birther" movement is back in the headlines. In a recent high-profile trial, Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin was dismissed from the Army and sentenced to six months in military prison for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan because he believes Obama was born outside the United States and should not be commander in chief.

The conspiracy theory began when Obama was running for president in 2008. Without any evidence, critics began to charge that Obama was born in Kenya, where his father was from, not Honolulu. The Obama campaign responded by releasing a “certification of live birth” from the health department, and local reporters in Honolulu dug up a newspaper birth announcement.

But the ‘birthers’ persisted, demanding the release of Obama’s birth certificate, and some prominent Republicans have stopped short of definitively putting the theory to rest.

According to an article in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the numerous requests have been a strain on the state Health Department's manpower, both under Abercrombie and his predecessor, Republican Linda Lingle.

Abercrombie got to know the president’s parents when they were students at the University of Hawaii. Though he says he was not at the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu when Obama was born — a fact likely to be latched onto by ‘birthers’ — he has long spoke of being around Obama when he was a baby.

The ‘birthers’ will be a tough group to convince, but Abercrombie told The New York Times: “I’m going to take care of that.”

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