THE TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama is being forced to repel a series of writs challenging his presidential eligibility, as conspiracy theories claiming he is not an American citizen refuse to go away.
The most common allegation lawyers are having to refute is that a certificate of Mr Obama's birth in Hawaii is false, leading accusers to conclude that he was born outside the country and is therefore disqualified to fill the highest office in the land.
Other challengers have contended that his Kenyan father was British, even though that would not exclude him from occupying the White House.
Both claims are untrue. Officials in Hawaii said they had viewed Mr Obama's original certificate and confirmed it stated he was born in Honolulu on Aug 4, 1961. A certified version of the certificate released by his campaign last summer when the theory began circulating showed the same. Birth notices in Hawaii papers record a birth to his mother and father on the same day.
But that has not stopped the theorists, who have been dubbed "the Birthers" and who see Mr Obama as a fifth columnist. Their accusations are often tinged with racism and antipathy to Islam, the religion of his father. During his campaigns Mr Obama faced an online rumour mill that he was a Muslim, though he has worshipped at a Christian church for 20 years.
The conservative website WorldNet Daily claims to have received 300,000 signatures for an online petition challenging Mr Obama's legitimacy.
Orly Taitz, a California dentist and lawyer, who was herself born overseas, is representing soldiers challenging Mr Obama's right to be president, including retired Maj Gen Carroll Childers, who compared the Democrat to "Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Mao, and Kim Jong Il".
"He is an interloper, a usurper, a fake, a scam artist, a Chicago crook, a recipient of bribes and gratuitous income for which he paid no tax, a socialist (perhaps only a communist or Marxist), and a grave danger to the future of the America that I love and have protected since I was 17 years old," Maj Gen Childers wrote in a statement on the website for Ms Taitz's Defend Our Freedoms Foundation. The rumour got closest to the mainstream when Richard Shelby, an Alabama senator, gave it credibility during a recent meeting with constituents.
Asked for his views on the notion, the Cullman Times, an Alabama paper, quoted Mr Shelby as saying: "Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president." >>> By Alex Spillius in Washington | Monday, March 2, 2009
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