From the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal — Originally published Thursday, July 30

Officials at the Hawaii Department of Health have checked again: Yes, Barack Obama is a natural-born American citizen. They have the valid birth certificate. It corresponds with the birth announcement in the newspaper at the time. The U.S. Supreme Court weighed all of this last year, and cast aside the legal challenge.

These and other facts haven’t been enough for the ”birthers,” still fanning the idea that there is something illegitimate about Obama’s presidency. Perhaps they will listen to Ann Coulter who recently called them ”cranks.” Or Bill O’Reilly, who made a telling point: The birthers don’t want to know the truth.

For too long, several Republicans such as Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma have encouraged the nonsense. U.S. Rep. Bill Posey of Florida has proposed legislation requiring that presidential candidates produce their original birth certificate. It hasn’t helped that Lou Dobbs of CNN seems to view the Obama birth as fitting into his fury against illegal immigration.

Forget, evidently, that beyond the paperwork, electronic and otherwise, Obama won a vote of the people. More, analysts stress in response to birther distortion: Obama’s mother was a natural born American citizen, and thus, whether she gave birth in Hamburg or Harare or Honolulu, her son is one, too.