Where Was Obama Born?

If the polls are to be believed, America is on the verge of electing a man whose past is scarcely known.

For example, as of today, the public still has no idea as to the place where Barack Obama was actually born.

He may turn out to be the only current or former president in history that does not have a historic marker or reported location that identifies the exact site of his birth.

A lawsuit filed earlier this year in federal court demanding that Obama release his birth certificate was thrown out.

During the court proceedings, Obama never produced his birth certificate, though he did produce a “certificate of live birth” issued by the state of Hawaii. Such a certificate lacks much of the basic details typically found on a birth certificate.

On Friday, an Associated Press story revealed that Hawaii’s Health Department director and the state’s registrar of vital statistics did indeed look at Obama’s birth certificate and verified that he was born in that state.

Still, these officials gave no details as to where the possible next president was actually born. The state cannot release a birth certificate without a person’s permission, but Obama has yet to allow his certificate to be released. [John McCain has released his birth certificate.]

The birth certificate is just one document in a long laundry list of documents that Obama has yet to release to the public, including college records, medical records and even his records as a state senator in Illinois. [See: Obama: Most Secretive Democratic Candidate Ever]

Since the founding of our republic, 42 men have served as president of the United States. Of these, there are only two presidents with disputed birth sites: Andrew Jackson (born in 1767) and Zachary Taylor (born in 1784). The remaining 40 presidents all have a historic site, or at least a marker, on the spot of their birth.