I really appreciate the last paragraph of his reply about how hard it is to give up treasured beliefs no matter how much proof we are faced with that they are wrong.

I have a question, though, about why the Obama campaign requested the COLB in the first place. My understanding was that it was because of detractors claiming that his middle name was "Muhammad" and so it was produced to show it was really "Hussein." The question of his not being born in Hawai'i came up later along with the claims that the COLB was a fake or invalid.

I wonder how things would have been different if the Obama campaign had not published the COLB in the first place. After all, how much of a difference does it make if some people who aren't going to vote for you anyway believe your middle name is Muhammad instead of Hussein?

I'm still waiting for Larry Wells to present his original long-form birth certificate for forensic examination. Simply calling oneself Citizen Wells is not proof of actual citizenship.

I think releasing the legal birth certificate (COLB) was the right thing to do given the questions raised of McCain's birth in Panama.

John Woodman's new book blog seems to be having problems. I haven't seen any new comments for a day. It had been quite active this weekend. I am looking forward to his new analysis of Polland's and Irey's claims.

Someone here made the smart observation that releasing the COLB created more doubts for a very small group, but it also resolved any possible doubt for a much larger group.

In other words, it was a tactic designed to satisfy the middle, perhaps uncommitted voters. And Obama won in 2008. He may have won in 2008 regardless, but it was a reasonable (if not crafty) mid-campaign tactic.

I'm not so sure. In a poll last week of ~1000 Columbus OH residents, 15% said they didn't believe Obama was born in the US and 11% weren't sure. I don't think that's a very small group. Of those surveyed, 41% said they'd absolutely not vote for Obama. I'll assume the whole 26% that didn't believe or weren't sure also said they wouldn't vote for Obama - 26 out of 41! That's 63% of those who say they won't vote for Obama aren't convinced he was born in the US! I think that's a staggering number.

I think that you're playing fast and loose with statistics.

I imagine that those same people would agree with anything else you said bad about him. They're NOT not voting for him because they think he's not an NBC ... they also think he's a socialist/communist/Nazi/muslin who hates 'Murricans.

Ya don't have to be a RWNJ to decide you won't vote for Obama. Not everyone that votes against him will believe that he is a socialist/communist/Nazi/muslin who hates 'Murricans/not an NBC.

“You’re ‘in cahoots’ with the Fogbow people (an online community who have as their goal to debunk eligibility skeptics).”

I’ve been in a bit of contact — or at least tried to be — with interested people on all sides of the issue: Jerome Corsi, Joseph Farah, [Foggy] (yes, of Fogbow), “Reality Check” of Reality Check Radio, Paul Irey, Douglas Vogt, Karl Denninger, Albert Renshaw, Ivan Zatkovich, Neal Krawetz, “Citizen Wells,” “Dr. Conspiracy,” Dave of thoughtsaloud.com, and others. Most of those are actually on the “birther” side. A couple of these that I tried to contact have never responded to date. I would’ve contacted Mara Zebest as well, but she’s made it very difficult to find her.

I didn’t come from the Fogbow community, generally don’t frequent their forum, and have never posted there at all except in response to comments about my book.

Some of the folks who are happy with what I found in my investigation have been willing to highlight it. The Fogbow people have a thread on my book at their forum, and Reality Check Radio did a nearly two-hour interview with me (whew!). Also, Dr. Conspiracy has featured my book at his site.

It’s only natural that people who like the results would want to make them known — and frankly, I thank them for doing so. So far, the only significant coverage that I’ve received from those who are skeptical of Mr. Obama has been from Dave of http://www.thoughtsaloud.com and from Citizen Wells of citizenwells.wordpress.com. I very much appreciate the coverage from these guys, too, and I warmly thank them for it — even though I did note some significant disagreements with what Citizen Wells wrote. But I still link to his review whenever there’s a reasonable chance to do so.

…I’ve suddenly been flooded with a whole series of personal attacks by people who don’t like the results of my 3-month investigation.

Welcome to our world.

First let me comment that I am personally kind of ashamed to have to answer these attacks — ashamed not for myself, but for the fact that people who seem to be mostly conservative are making such attacks on anybody.

I do not feel that such non-fact-based, personal public attacks express conservative values.

Had you criticized such attacks against others in the past?

To me, being a conservative means, among other things: traditional values of honesty, truth, and kindness whenever possible to other people. And they include not judging until I know the facts.

Actually, I started my investigation tending to believe that Barack Obama was probably born somewhere other than the United States.

What led you to that belief?

How did that square with not judging until you know the facts?

As a result of 3 months of testing the fraud theories and thinking long and hard about the evidence, I now tend to believe he was born in Honolulu, just as the Hawaii Department of Health has been telling us.

What led you to that belief?

What additional evidence would it take for you to believe, rather than tend to believe?

That still doesn’t make him a decent President — but at least it reassures me that our American system hasn’t failed us quite as badly as a lot of people seem to think it has.

Your findings support Barack Obama’s innocence of the charges of fraud, deceit, usurpation and worse that have been leveled against him. In other words, whatever you think of his Presidency, he appears to be a decent human being who has certainly not been treated decently.

But it's okay, because the system hasn’t failed “us” too badly. I find that attitude more than a little arrogant and lacking in the values you cite above as those of conservatives.

It gets better.....

As noted on Mr Woodmans site in a post called

I Catch WorldNetDaily Scrubbing Information that Directly Contradicts One of Dr. Jerome Corsi’s Most Important Fraud Theories!

http://www.obamabirthbook.com/http:/www ... -theories/

It turns out that WND originally posted a far less redacted version of their "true and accurate" birth certificate.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us

Guess what.....the first version shows EXACTLY the same types of "discrepancies" as the Presidents'.....now I wonder why WND has suddenly changed the original image.....

Nice try Paul but no cigar. You can clearly see a 1 in front of the 0 and after the 61. The certificate number is really 61 109945 not 61 09945. This would be more consistent since this birth was on August 23, 1961 which is 2 weeks after Obama’s birth. You can definitely see a 1 in the WND image in front of the 0. The enhancement butchers the 1 but you can still see a piece of it. Keep up your hard work serving the obots.