Family of Doctor Who Delivered Obama ‘Blown Away’

April 28th, 2011

AOL News

By: Jennifer Sinco Kelleher

The family of a Honolulu doctor whose signature appears on President Barack Obama’s birth certificate woke up to the news Wednesday that the late obstetrician had delivered Obama.

Relatives of Dr. David Sinclair told The Associated Press that they were “blown away” and “honored.”

So-called “birthers” have questioned Obama’s birthplace, espousing theories that he was not born in the U.S., possibly his father’s native Kenya, and therefore ineligible to be president.

Obama released a short form copy of his birth certificate in 2008. Recently, potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump began questioning why he hadn’t ensured that the original certificate was released.

On Wednesday, the White House released a copy of the original birth certificate.

Below Obama’s mother’s signature was one which appeared to read: “David. A. Sinclair.”

“It’s my husband’s signature,” said his widow, Ivalee Sinclair, 82, from her downtown Honolulu office. She held up a copy of the birth certificate she printed from the Internet and pointed to the signature, recognizing his familiar left-handed cursive.

Sinclair had an obstetrics and gynecology practice in Honolulu and delivered babies all over Hawaii when Obama was born in 1961, said his son Karl Sinclair, 55, of Kailua. The doctor retired in the late 1990s and died in 2003 at 81.

“What a shocker,” said Karl Sinclair, one of six children. “It’s amazing. I’m blown away by it, quite honestly.”

They found out because one of their relatives was awake at 3 a.m. watching the news and saw the signature, said Dawn Yoshimura-Sinclair, who is married to another Sinclair son, Dr. Brian Sinclair, a neuroradiologist.

“We can attest to the fact that it is indeed dad’s signature,” Yoshimura-Sinclair said. “It’s not a common name over here. There’s no confusion that it was dad.”

Ivalee Sinclair said her husband never discussed his patients and that delivering a black child born to a white mother wouldn’t be a detail he would focus on.

“He never would have brought anything like that up,” she said. “He delivered a lot of children. I have no idea how many.”

Relatives said while they previously never made the connection, looking back it makes sense because there were few obstetricians in Honolulu at the time.

“He never turned anyone away,” said Karl Sinclair’s wife, Julie Sinclair. “Whether they could pay or not.”

Born in Portland, Ore., Sinclair moved to Hawaii at 15 because his father was an engineer who helped build Wilson tunnel on Oahu. The doctor joined the military after hearing the Pearl Harbor bombing from his front lawn, Ivalee Sinclair said. He was an Army pilot and witnessed so much death during the war that he became a doctor so he could have a career focusing on giving life, family members said.

“I think he became a doctor because he was concerned about all the people who died in the war,” his widow said. “I think he wanted to do something to make up for that.”

Ivalee Sinclair met her future husband during trigonometry class at the University of Hawaii, where he enrolled after the war. He later went to medical school at the University of California at San Francisco, where he completed his residency.

Sinclair returned to Honolulu with his wife and children in 1960. He delivered babies mostly at what is now known as Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children, just a couple miles from his home and where Obama was born.

Sinclair’s widow still lives in their English tudor which features a view of the Honolulu skyline and where the Sinclairs raised their six children. A shady avocado tree is planted next to plumeria flowers fronting the home that is listed on the state historic registry. A framed black-and-white portrait of the doctor and his family sits over the fireplace in the living room.

The Sinclair sons said they imagine he would be thrilled one of the babies he delivered grew up to be president.

“I’m just honored and proud of my father,” Karl Sinclair said.

“I think it’s great,” said Dr. Brian Sinclair, who pursued a career in medicine because of his father. “Hawaii was a very small place back then so I guess I’m not surprised.”

Brian Sinclair graduated from the same high school as Obama but didn’t know him personally. The Sinclair family includes Obama supporters and those who didn’t vote for him, they said.

The Sinclairs hope the birth certificate will end the speculation.

“It distracts from all the issues,” Ivalee Sinclair said.

“To me, the birth certificate doesn’t lie,” Karl Sinclair said. “I think that should put everything to bed.”

Click here for the full report from AOL News

Obama Releases Long-Form Birth Certificate

April 27th, 2011

USA Today

By: Susan Page and Jackie Kucinich

President Obama, trying to squelch a persistent and distracting controversy over whether he was born in the United States, on Wednesday released the official long-form birth certificate that skeptics had demanded.

The signed-and-sealed Certificate of Live Birth shows he was born exactly where he had said: Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu. During the 2008 campaign, he had released a copy of his Certification of Live Birth, a shorter official form with fewer details.

At a morning White House news conference, Obama said he decided to seek the official waiver needed to obtain the longer document after the debate over competing deficit reduction plans by him and House Republicans were overshadowed by the conspiracy theories fanned by possible GOP presidential contender Donald Trump and others.

“We’ve got some enormous challenges out there,” the president told reporters in the briefing room. “I am confident that the American people and America’s political leaders can come together in a bipartisan way and solve these problems. … (But) we aren’t going to be able to solve these problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.”

Trump, at a news conference of his own in New Hampshire, bragged that he had forced the president to release the document. “I’m very proud of myself because I accomplished something that nobody else was able to accomplish,” he said.

Then he immediately pivoted to another issue involving Obama’s personal qualifications, saying he had read that Obama was a poor student and asking how he had won admission to Columbia University and Harvard Law School, both elite institutions. “I don’t know why he doesn’t release his records” from his school days, Trump said.

Democratic consultant Phil Singer said it was smart of the White House to release the longer birth document.

“This is a non-issue that for whatever reason takes up space that would otherwise be dedicated to the good things that the president is doing, so it makes every piece of sense in the world to try to take the issue off the table,” said Singer, an aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 primaries against Obama.

“It probably would have been a good thing if they’d done it when the issue first surfaced, but better late than never,” he said.

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll released Monday showed the issue gaining surprising traction, given that investigations by news outlets and non-partisan organizations consistently concluded there was no question about Obama’s place of birth. In the poll, taken last week, only 38% of Americans said they thought the president was “definitely” born in the United States; 18% said he “probably” was.

Nearly one in four, 24%, said he was probably or definitely born in another country. Nineteen percent said they didn’t know enough to say.

Among Republicans, 43% said Obama was definitely or probably born abroad — more than the 35% who said he was definitely or probably born in the USA.

“This has long been a settled issue,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “The speaker’s focus is on cutting spending, lowering gas prices and creating American jobs.”

Obama also said he was focused on jobs, the economy and other big challenges. But he pointedly noted that the release of his birth certificate was consuming more news attention that the pending White House announcement of appointments of a new Defense secretary and CIA chief.

And Trump sounded like a candidate undeterred by the loss of the issue that had drawn him attention, saying he would announce his decision on the finale of his TV reality show, Celebrity Apprentice.

“I think if I do run, I’ll do very well,” Trump said. “I think I’d beat Obama.”

Click here for the full report from USA Today