I anticipated a response along those lines. (And there's certainly truth to it). Please read this in full (especially my last paragraph at the bottom) before replying because I don't want my response to be misunderstood. For the record, I believe he was born in Hawaii. Having said that....

When Barack Obama ran, he made certain promises to the nation that he would be like unlike any prior leader....that there would be a level of transparency unheard of in American politics. The bar was quite low to begin with (in terms of being an honest politician), and yet he has invalidated his original image a thousand times over. I cannot recall an elected president who originally made "such a stink" about Washington politics and dishonesty and lack of transparency - and wound up being just as bad (or worse).

So the "he's not doing anything that other leaders haven't done" is just not going to cut it.

OK, to go back to Nick's original question, and my responses....

First, his literary agent (as part of his 1991 biography) claimed in writing that Barack Obama was "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii" Later the agent tried to walk back the claim, saying that "This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me. Obama never in any of his correspondence or other communications suggested in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii.”

Well, draw your own conclusions on the agent's attempt to walk it back. My reaction is that it doesn't hold water. The agent claims a fact-checking error - based on what original fact or supposed fact??? The agent had to get that claim from "somewhere". Also, there is no public record of Obama requesting a correction in the 10+ years that the biography was in circulation.

Second, he has repeatedly refused to release his academic records from Occidental. Just like the process often demands that candidates with large financial backgrounds release their financial/tax records, it also demands that those who promote their candidacy based on scholarship should release their records. Draw your own conclusion. I've drawn mine. He was president of the Harvard Law Review, despite an EXTREMLY scant history of published work. As someone who has worked in the trade publication history for over a decade (and has studied professional journals nearly all my adult life), it is nearly unheard of to grant someone that type of position in those circumstances...except perhaps if Harvard gave him that position for other reasons.

I've read the history of Obama's rise to that position and I think the reasons for giving him that position are very specious. When you couple that with the documented problems of grade inflation at Occidental at around the same time, the problem isn't just his academic records, it's also the courses and faculty who were teaching them.

Finally, dating back to his college days, there are different individuals who have stated that Obama told them he was born in Kenya. Of course, this is hearsay. However, I do tend to believe that some of them are telling the truth. They were random individuals in college, during his time as a lawyer, and during his run for the Senate. These individuals have no connection between them, other than the fact that they all knew him.

One last point - something I read on a libertarian blog and one I agree with. Why did the Obama camp scream bloody murder when someone raised questions about his background, and only released his birth certificate when Trump forced the issue so hard that it caused Obama damage in public polls? The true explanation is that Obama would never have been embarrassed if people found out (hypothetically) that he lied about being born in Hawaii, since he knew he was born in Hawaii - he's FAR more fearful that the earlier embellishment about being born in Kenya would come back to haunt him. And THAT is the point that the mainstream media has completely missed.