While they ruled out any chance of the ‘birther’ lawsuits holding up in court, lawyers for the McCain campaign did check into the rumors about Obama’s birth and the assertions made by Berg and others. “To the extent that we could, we looked into the substantive side of these allegations,” said Potter. “We never saw any evidence that then-Senator Obama had been born outside of the United States. We saw rumors, but nothing that could be sourced to evidence. There were no statements and no documents that suggested he was born somewhere. On the other side, there was proof that he was born in Hawaii. There was a certificate issued by the state’s Department of Health, and the responsible official in the state saying that he had personally seen the original certificate. There was a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser, which would be very difficult to invent or plant 47 years in advance.”

“Birther” lawyers and bloggers, who gained an unexpected prominence in the mainstream media, have consistently denied Hawaii’s own records of Obama’s birth. They have also built up a corpus of information which, they argue, would invalidate Obama’s claim on the White House even if he was born in the United States. These rumors, and the inability of “birther” lawyers to test them in court, have proven pervasive enough to fuel the conspiracy theories…

Apuzzo is not convinced. He argued that the founders wrote the phrase “natural born citizen” for a reason; to make sure that no one with “blood ties” to another country could become president. He speculated what might happen if Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.), whose parents were Indian, became president. “India is a nuclear power. Here comes the president, who says we have to go in and attack Pakistan. Are we doing that because we are defending India’s interests? You just don’t know. You can’t have Constitutional rule if you allow this.”