Former Hawaii Health Director Chiyome Fukino - at the center of the Obama citizenship issue - has given an interview in which she claims that Obama has a valid birth certificate on file in Hawaii. Per her, the certificate is half handwritten and half typed and is signed by the delivering physician. She also claims that the information on the "Certification of Live Birth" ("COLB") shown on Obama's site matches what they have on file.

That settles the "Birther" issue, right? Not really. Those who have concerns about whether Obama is really a citizen due to issues of his father's citizenship or his mother's age will still have those concerns, but that's not an area that's been covered here. And, in order to think that this solves the question of whether Obama was in fact born in Hawaii, one would need to take the word of Chiyome Fukino, something I'm not willing to do. I think it's very likely Obama was born in Hawaii and I think it's likely that Fukino is telling the truth. However - unlike 99.99% of those who've commented on this issue - I've actually spoken with those in Hawaii such as Janice Okubo. And, I don't exactly trust them to a) tell the absolute truth, and b) to care all that much about "mainland concerns".

That's buttressed by all of the lies and misleading statements that have swirled around this issue since it began: the mainstream media has consistently failed to look into this issue in a balanced way. Instead, the media has consistently maintained that Obama was born where he says he was and has lied and misled to fit that preordained conclusion.

Here's the article by Michael Isikoff of MSNBC (obviously a very Obama-friendly source; msnbc.msn.com/id/42519951):

"It’s kind of ludicrous at this point," Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the former director of Hawaii's Department of Health, said in a rare telephone interview with NBC.

Fukino, sounding both exasperated and amused, spoke to a reporter in the aftermath of Donald Trump's statements on the NBC Today show last week questioning whether Obama has a legitimate birth certificate.

...No matter what state officials release on the issue, the "birthers" are going to question it, said Fukino. "They’re going to question the ink on which it was written or say it was fabricated," said Fukino. "The whole thing is silly."

...The first [of her points] is that the original so-called "long form" birth certificate - described by Hawaiian officials as a "record of live birth" - absolutely exists, located in a bound volume in a file cabinet on the first floor of the state Department of Health. Fukimo said she has personally inspected it — twice. The first time was in late October 2008, during the closing days of the presidential campaign, when the communications director for the state's then Republican governor, Linda Lingle (who appointed Fukino) asked if she could make a public statement in response to claims then circulating on the Internet that Obama was actually born in Kenya.

Before she would do so, Fukino said, she wanted to inspect the files - and did so, taking with her the state official in charge of vital records. She found the original birth record, properly numbered, half typed and half handwritten, and signed by the doctor who delivered Obama, located in the files. She then put out a public statement asserting to the document's validity. She later put out another public statement in July 2009 - after reviewing the original birth record a second time.

"It is real, and no amount of saying it is not, is going to change that," Fukino said. Moreover, she added, her boss at the time, Lingle - who was backing John McCain for president - would presumably have to be in on any cover up since Fukino made her public comment at the governor's office's request. "Why would a Republican governor — who was stumping for the other guy - hold out on a big secret?" she asked.

Her second point - one she made repeatedly in the interview - is that the shorter, computer generated "certification of live birth" that was obtained by the Obama campaign in 2007 and has since been publicly released is the standard document that anybody requesting their birth certificate from the state of Hawaii would receive from the health department.

The document was distributed to the Obama campaign in 2007 after Obama, at the request of a campaign official, personally signed a Hawaii birth certificate request form downloaded on the Internet, according to a former campaign official who asked for anonymity. (Obama was "testy" when asked to sign the form but did so anyway to put the issue to rest, the former campaign official said. The White House has dismissed all questions about the president's birth as "fictional nonsense.")

The certification that the campaign received back —which shows that Obama was born in Honolulu at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961 — was based on the content of the original document in state files, Fukino said.

"What he got, everybody got," said Fukino. "He put out exactly what everybody gets when they ask for a birth certificate."

Hawaiian officials say that the certification is, in fact, only one piece of abundant evidence of Obama's birth in Hawaii. Joshua Wisch, a spokesman for the Hawaii attorney general's office, noted that a public index of vital records, available for inspection in a bound volume at the Health Department's Office of Health Status Monitoring, lists a male child named "Obama II, Barack Hussein" as having been born in the state.

...Even Fukino accepts that her comments are not likely to end the matter for the die-hard birthers. Trump and other skeptics have questioned why the original birth certificate has not been released.

But Wisch, the spokesman for the attorney general's office, said state law does not in fact permit the release of "vital records," including an original "record of live birth" — even to the individual whose birth it records.

"It's a Department of Health record and it can't be released to anybody," he said. Nor do state laws have any provision that authorizes such records to be photocopied, Wisch said. If Obama wanted to personally visit the state health department, he would be permitted to inspect his birth record, Wisch said.

But if he or anybody else wanted a copy of their birth records, they would be told to fill out the appropriate state form and receive back the same computer generated "certification of live birth" form that everybody else gets - which is exactly what Obama did four years ago.

1. Note that Fukino sounds more like an exasperated Obama supporter than an objective finder of fact.

2. Fukino also seems to think there's some real difference between the Republicans and Democrats, when in fact both are part of the greater "Establishment". Does anyone think a hack like Linda Lingle would reveal some big secret about Obama if she knew of it, and thereby dash the hopes of the first black candidate who stood a real chance at the presidency? Note also that Lingle lied about what Fukino's statement said; see her name's link.

3. And, of course, Obama could get them to release anything he wanted them to release. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to fool you.

UPDATE: Hawaii state senator Sam Slom thinks that one reason why Obama won't release his full certificate is that could show his father to be different than Obama Sr. (link). On the topic of this post:

(Aaron Klein) also asked Slom about recent statements made by former Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino to MSNBC, in which she claimed Hawaii law prevents Obama's long-form birth certificate from being disclosed, even to Obama himself.

"I didn't hear the statements on MSNBC," Slom admitted, "but I do not believe that part is true."