Sara Olkon, James Janega/Chicago Tribune lie about Obama birth certificate being authenticated

Sara Olkon and James Janega of the Chicago Tribune offer "Tax activist's ad challenges Obama's eligibility for office" (link), a supposed fact-checking article that contains a few variations on the same lie.

They falsely claim that Hawaii officials have authenticated the supposed Barack Obama birth certificate as shown on his site and at FactCheck. In fact, all those officials have done is verified that there is a certificate on file. It would be illegal for those officials to have released any details on whatever certificate is on file, and verifying information would likewise be illegal. See this summary of the issue, especially this extensive discussion of the "proof" so far provided.

Their "fact check" is in regards to an ad that the We The People Foundation took out in their paper, and they say:

Cases challenging Obama's citizenship have been tossed out of courts in several states, and Hawaiian officials have vouched for the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate, which is locked in a state vault... ...Initially, Hawaiian officials said that privacy laws prevented them from releasing a copy or confirming that Obama's copy was authentic. But in late October as questions persisted, Hawaii's health director and head of vital statistics reviewed Obama's birth certificate in the department's vault and vouched for its authenticity.

As stated above, they are only legally able to say that it exists. They aren't allowed to give any details on what it says or whether it matches the JPEG provided at FactCheck.

And:

Last summer, Obama's campaign presented a digital copy of his certificate of live birth. After critics questioned its authenticity, staff at FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, said they had seen, held and examined the actual birth certificate.

That requires one to not only trust that FactCheck - a site that has occasionally gotten things wrong or shown bias - is telling the truth, but also that they're qualified to judge whether a document is valid. No one interested in the truth should make such a leap.

Sara Olkon and James Janega are simply incurious hacks.

UPDATE: James Janega doubles down, offering "Suit contesting Barack Obama's citizenship heads to U.S. Supreme Court Friday" (link), an article containing a Big Lie:

The Obama campaign has maintained that he was born in Hawaii, has an authentic birth certificate, and is a "natural-born" U.S. citizen. Hawaiian officials agree.

The state of Hawaii has said no such thing; they only said he had a cert on file. James Janega is a pathological liar.

Politics · Thu, 12/04/2008 - 01:26 · · Importance: 9