President Barack Obama has produced his detailed birth certificate from Hawaii, hoping to clamp off a resurrection of claims he was born outside the United States and declaring the country did not have the "time for this kind of silliness."
The timing of Obama's nationally televised statement and release of the document coincided with persistent charges fvom potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that the president had not proved he was born in the United States. The US Constitution requires the president not be foreign-born.
With the 2012 presidential election 18 months away and Republicans and Democrats preparing for political battle over how to reduce the US debt, Obama said he did not want the country further distracted from those issues by continued public questions about where he was born. "I've got better stuff to do. We've got big problems to solve. And I'm confident we can solve them, but we're going to have to focus on them not on this," Obama said in a statement in the White House press room.
Trump, meanwhile, spoke to reporters after stepping off a helicopter in a campaign-style stop in New Hampshire and congratulated himself as the only American to force Obama to release the so-called long-form birth certificate. "He should have done it a long time ago. I am really honoured to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue," Trump said.
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