Frank Fleming has examined it and concludes that it must be real.

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Tommy De Seno attempts (not very persuasively) to dispel skepticism provoked by the “layered birth certificate image” issue.

As I understand it, if you scan an image to a pdf, there are no layers. You basically get a photograph. However, if you use a software like Photoshop and change things, you get layers – the original image and the new image layered on top of one another.

Or so I thought.

I went online to read the 411 from folks who claim to know much about this sort of thing. I got lost in conversations about OCR and halos and other geeky things. All I accomplished was to become intimidated. Both sides sounded convincing, I assume because I know so little about computers that I’m easy to convince.

Before this thing gets out of control, the makers of Adobe and Photoshop need to come out with a joint statement and explain what is behind this “layered” business. Guys like me can’t figure it out.

Another point: Even if it is layered, it’s OK. What was released could be an aggregation of information from other sources of Hawaiian vital statistics, which is perfectly legitimate.

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Robert Stacy McCain attempts to put the whole Birther controversy into the proper perspective.

Scarcely had the White House released President Obama’s birth certificate than the “Birther” skeptics issued statements expressing their continued doubts about other aspects of Obama’s biography. One oft-heard refrain was that the president had waited too long to release the document. Others moved on to demanding to see Obama’s academic transcripts. Donald Trump congratulated himself on having pressured the White House into finally putting an end to many months of mystery.

What will be the political impact of this? In the long term, likely none at all. Americans who don’t like Obama will continue not to like him. The president gave a sanctimonious press conference lecture — the nation was being “distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers,” he said — but Obama’s opponents have long since ceded his superlative gifts at delivering sanctimonious lectures. Where he fails is in delivering effective policies to address our nation’s manifold problems. By the time the 2012 election arrives, the Birther controversy will be long forgotten, while Obama’s failed policies will (or at least should be) front and center of the campaign debate.

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And Fleming and Hayes parse the law to demonstrate that Barack Hussein Obama II, birth certificate or no birth certificate, does not meet Congress’s definition of a natural born citizen.

The ‘long form’ birth certificate that the White House released confirms that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was our president’s father. Obama Sr., a Kenyan by birth, was a citizen of the British Empire. While his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was an American citizen, his father never emigrated to the United States, or married her. … [should be: “validly married her” as Barack Obama Sr. was already married in Kenya, his marriage to Stanley Ann Dunham was bigamous and therefore invalid. — DZ]

While the definition of ‘natural born citizen’ was never made by the founding fathers, in 2008 then Senator Obama co-sponsored Senate Resolution 511 which was drafted to address the status of senator and presidential hopeful John McCain’s status as a natural born citizen, having been born in the Panama Canal Zone.

The resolution states,

Whereas there is no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military nor to prevent those children from serving as their country’s President;

Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the `natural born Citizen’ clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress’s own statute defining the term `natural born Citizen’;

The reference this bill makes is to,

CHAP III

An Act To establish an uniform rule of naturalization
Approved March 26 1790 US Statutes at Large Vol I pp 103 104

SECTION 1

…And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea or out of the limits of the United States shall be considered as natural born citizens. Provided That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.

This distinction drawn between ‘citizen’ and ‘natural born citizen’ is at the heart of the debate over Obama’s eligibility to continue serving as the President of the United States.

It’s this issue that the members of the ‘birther’ movement should have been behind since day one, instead of concocting theories about Kenya midwives and Indonesian home births.

Donald Trump tells Laura Ingraham that he is proud to be a birther.

Trump is having fun picking on Obama over the unreleased full birth certificate.

Some news agency reports that Hawaii’s governor is abandoning his effort to release Obama’s mysterious long-form birth certificate.

A privacy law that shields birth certificates has prompted Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie to abandon efforts to dispel claims that President Barack Obama was born outside Hawaii, his office says.

State Attorney General David Louie told the governor that privacy laws bar him from disclosing an individual’s birth documentation without the person’s consent, Abercrombie spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Friday.

Obama is not only not releasing his birth certificate, college transcripts, and medical records, he is also not releasing his detailed legal bills, but Obama’s campaign organization is required by law to divulge what it does with its money, and World Net Daily is able to report:

President Obama has paid nearly $1.7 million to his top eligibility lawyer since the election.

Obama for America, Obama’s 2008 political campaign, merged with the Democratic National Committee in January and is now known as Organizing for America. The grass-roots army that some refer to as “Obama 2.0” is still collecting financial contributions.

Federal Election Commission records for “Obama for America” show that the lobby organization has paid international law firm Perkins Coie exactly $1,666,397.01 since the 2008 election. …

The FEC shows Obama’s campaign has made regular payments to Perkins Coie since Jan. 1, 2007 – the month he formed a presidential exploratory committee and only weeks before he formally announced his candidacy for president.

In total, Obama has paid Perkins Coie, a single law firm, $2.6 million since he announced his campaign for presidency. …

Robert Bauer of Perkins Coie – top lawyer for Obama, Obama’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s Organizing for America – is the same Washington, D.C., lawyer who defended President Obama in lawsuits challenging his eligibility to be president.

Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer argues that the $1.7 million spent on Perkins Coie’s legal services since the election cannot possibly all have been for costs related to keeping that birth certificate out of public view.

WorldNetDaily has noted that FEC filings show that Obama’s presidential campaign has paid out more than $1.7 million since the election to the law firm of Perkins Coie. Until recently, that firm was home to Obama’s campaign lawyer, and now White House counsel, Robert Bauer—the very same DC lawyer, says WND, who has defended Obama in many of the birther lawsuits. Ergo, WND concluded, Obama must be devoting that entire $1.7 million to crushing birthers in court. This is a ridiculous claim: Even after an election is over a presidential campaign has plenty of need for lawyers as it winds down operations and meets campaign finance law requirements.

I think she has a point. There must have been some legal filings and reports that had to be done but, $1.7 million is a lot of money and obviously represents a great deal more in the way of legal services than routine, post-election paperwork.

How much money would you or I spend to avoid releasing our original and complete birth certificate so that every Tom, Dick, and Harry could pore over it to his heart’s content (as part of our ascension to the highest office in the land)? The obvious answer, in my own case, is not a dime. Why would I care?

Barack Obama clearly has spent very large and substantial sums of money on legal efforts to prevent that birth certificate’s public release. It is clearly in his interest to release it, to end law suits and put a stop to speculation and charges that he is somehow unqualified for the office he holds but, as we see again, despite encouragement from his own friend and ally, Hawaii’s Governor Abercrombie, Obama is not releasing it.

I don’t think Obama was born in Kenya, but it is only too obvious that Obama must have something to hide. Something sufficiently embarrassing or damaging that it is worth spending a great deal of money to conceal it.

Jack Cashill, best-known for the Bill-Ayers-ghost-wrote-Dreams-From-My-Father theory, proposes a new explanation about why Barack Obama’s birth certificate might be worth concealing.

Ingenious, but I don’t see how anyone can invest very much in this one in the complete absence of any actual evidence.