Obama has no time to waste on ‘birthers’

Carolyn Shugar, Las Vegas

Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009 | 2:03 a.m.

I’m writing in reference to the people who insist that President Barack Obama needs to show his birth certificate. I’m a little confused. Is that something different from a registered legal document, which is what a “Certificate of Live Birth” is?

My husband and I are from Canada. We each carry a wallet-sized, laminated card reading “Province of Ontario,” where we were born, at the top . It has a heading that states “Birth Certificate.” The cards also carry our name, gender, date of birth, birthplace, registration number and the signature of a registrar-general.

When we were applying for both our Canadian and our U.S. passports, however, those cards were not acceptable. The officials required our “Certificates of Birth,” legal documents held in the Ontario archives that include more detailed information, such as our parents’ names, hospitals of birth and a stamped legal certification, similar to what President Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth shows — that he was, indeed, born in the U.S.

Because he already knows that this legal document is there for anyone to see, and obviously more acceptable than a “birth certificate” if yours are anything like ours, there is no reason for him to waste his time any further.

If we had elected Sen. John McCain, would the same people be demanding to see his birth certificate, given that he was born in Panama? He was born on a U.S. military base ... or was he? What if he was really born off base for some reason? What then? I doubt if anybody would even think to question that.