Qwanz

The state government can legally ignore repeated requests for President Obama’s birth certificate – a blow (or perhaps a publicity boost) to the birther movement, which claims that Mr. Obama was not born the US, and is therefore not eligible to be president.

The birthers are instead turning to another claim against Obama’s legitimacy: an Internet rumor that questions the Obama social security number. Two private investigators claim that the digits indicate that it was issued in Connecticut, not Hawaii. (The digits in a social security number are allocated based on state of residence when issued.) They also say his social security number belongs to someone born in 1890.

In Hawaii, the Republican Gov. Linda Lingle signed the birth certificate bill into law Wednesday.

The Hawaii Department of Health, apparently, has had enough. It receives about 50 requests for Obama’s birth certificate every month, according to the agency’s director, Dr. Chiyome Fukino. And those requests come mostly from the same four to five people, she said in a testimony before the state legislature in February.

Not for the want of trying, really.