Do Obama's birth announcements prove he was born in Hawaii? (Honolulu Advertiser newspaper)

Shortly after Barack Obama was born, two identical announcements appeared in Hawaiian newspapers announcing his birth. The announcements do not prove he was born there, for the reasons outlined below.

(Unfortunately, since many witting or unwitting fans of Obama and the mainstream media are hard of thinking, I'll have to put this in bold up front: that doesn't mean he wasn't born there; that just means that the announcements aren't proof).

The announcements are simply evidence; they aren't conclusive proof and as evidence they aren't as strong as Obama supporters and the MSM would have you believe. Obama's supporters - witting or unwitting - are as usual intellectually dishonest and engaging in sloppy thinking or they're attempting to mislead people.

* What the announcements say

This is all both say:

Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, Aug. 4

The address given is supposedly that of his parents. Per WorldNetDaily, an investigator's team were unable to locate anyone who remembered them living there [1].

In both papers, the other names listed are the same and in the same order. This site checked some of the other names against the Social Security file and found some that didn't match; that may have an innocent explanation such as people moving and not updating their files at the time and so on.

* What the announcements don't say
* The city where Obama was born...
* the hospital where he was born...
* they don't even have his name.

If the announcements said he was born in Hawaii, and it could be shown that only a birth hospital could have placed the announcements, that would certainly be nearly conclusive evidence. However, the proof that Obama supporters are using doesn't even say where he was born.

* Was there motivation to "plant" the announcements?
The canard section below discusses those who've tried to pretend that the only reason someone could have "planted" the announcements was in case Obama would run for president. Yet, there are other reasons: assuming for the minute that Obama was born overseas, the grandparents might have wanted the announcements as keepsakes, or to prove that Obama was born in the U.S. in case of a custody battle, or to prove that he was born in the U.S. because U.S. citizenship is very valuable. For the Obama supporters: that doesn't mean that they were planted. That just means it's a possibility. If he were born overseas his family did have motivation to try to pretend that he was born in the U.S.

* How were announcements handled in 1961?
No one has yet provided definitive proof that the pictured birth announcements could have only come from a birth hospital and nowhere else. The fact that both papers show the same names in the same order shows beyond much doubt that they came from one source. It's not outside the realm of possibility to imagine someone from Obama's family submitting an announcement, using "social engineering" as necessary. Exactly how much proof would have been required simply to place an ad in the newspaper?

* Who lived at the listed address?
As discussed here, the address in the announcements appears to have been rented by Obama's grandparents, with Stanley possibly living in the back house. Obama Sr. rented his own apartment miles away.

* The "time travel" canard
This has been used by FactCheck and many other sources; they try to pretend that the only reason the announcements could have been planted was because his relatives thought he might run for president one day. As detailed above, his relatives had other, much more mundane motivations. Using this canard marks someone as dishonest.

More to follow...

[1] "Investigator casts doubt on Obama's birth residence/Neighbor believes family didn't live at address in newspaper announcement", link

Tue, 09/15/2009 - 16:18 · · Importance: 4