The Story That Won't Go Away, Ever

  Is Barack Obama an American? Why are we still asking this question?

  Is his birth certificate forged or real? Can we just get over this?

  But no, there are now web sites whose sole purpose is to prove Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii and his birth certificate is forged. The U.S. Supreme Court might get into the picture as well.

  Slate magazine highlights the entire blow-by-blow look at this fiasco that simply won't go away.

  Quote: How did the citizenship rumor get started? Ironically, it began when the Obama campaign tried to debunk some other conspiracies. After Obama locked up the nomination in early June, low-level talk radio and blog chatter peddled rumors that Obama's real middle name was Muhammad, that his father was not really Barack Obama, and that he was not really born in Hawaii. The campaign released a facsimile of Obama's certificate of live birth. Requested from the state in 2007, the certificate reported that Obama was, indeed, born in Honolulu at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961.

The certificate was a bullet that didn't put down the horse. Why, skeptics asked, release a new form from Hawaii instead of the original paper that Obama's parents got in 1961—the one that Obama found in a box of his dad's knickknacks in Dreams From My Father? They quickly came up with an explanation: The certificate was forged.