On the August 11 edition of the syndicated radio program The War Room With Quinn & Rose, guest host Mike Pintek echoed right-wing blogs and websites in questioning the authenticity of Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate, which was posted on the Obama campaign's Fight the Smears website in response to the false claim that Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Pintek asserted: “I still keep wondering about his birthplace and his birth certificate. I'm still not convinced that he actually was born a natural-born citizen.” Pintek went on to add: “According to some people who know what they're talking about, who are experts on this, they say that the birth certificate that he's got on his website and has been posted to the Daily Kos and some other places, is -- it looks very much like a Photoshop deal and doesn't look legit.”

Later in the broadcast, a caller asked Pintek whether "[t]he Republican Party could file a class-action suit ... against Obama demanding that he provide positive proof that he is a bona fide American citizen." Pintek responded that “it's actually happening in the blogs” and added: "[T]he last time I filled in for Quinn and Rose, a guy sent me info about his belief that the so-called Barack Obama birth certificate is actually Photoshopped."

In an August 13 article, The Honolulu Advertiser reported that Hawaii Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo said that her office contacted the Obama campaign to find a solution to the repeated requests for Obama's birth certificate. She reportedly said that the Obama campaign “responded and apparently it isn't good enough that he posted his birth certificate.” She reportedly added: “They say they want it because they claim he is not a citizen of the United States. It's pretty ridiculous.”

The War Room With Quinn & Rose is a syndicated radio program based in Pittsburgh on Clear Channel's WPGB 104.7 FM. Talkers Magazine lists Quinn and Rose on its "Heavy Hundred." According to the show's website, it airs on 17 radio stations and XM Satellite Radio.

From the August 11 edition of Clear Channel's The War Room With Quinn & Rose:

PINTEK: That brings us to -- back to Obama. Obama, he takes off, he's in Hawaii now. He claims that's his home. We wonder. I still keep wondering about his birthplace and his birth certificate. I'm still not convinced that he actually was born a natural-born citizen. I'm still not convinced about that. But we may never be able to prove that either without a real, honest-to-God birth certificate. Maybe one does not exist. You know, the one that they post -- they posted doesn't -- that looks like a Photoshop deal. According to some people who know what they're talking about, who are experts on this, they say that the birth certificate that he's got on his website and has been posted to the Daily Kos and some other places, is -- it looks very much like a Photoshop deal and doesn't look legit. So what's he hiding?

[...]

CALLER: Isn't there some way, or maybe I'm just wishing, that the Republican Party could file a class-action suit against Democrats -- against Obama demanding that he provide positive proof that he is a bona fide American citizen?

PINTEK: Well, that's a -- it's actually happening in the blogs. It's not a class-action suit. This would -- I don't know how you'd go about this. I guess you'd have to file some kind of a claim with the elections commission that Barack Obama's not a bona fide natural-born citizen and here's why and then force him to prove it. You would have to take -- somebody would have to go to court to do that. You could also continue to make it a campaign issue, as they are in the blogs. This is not an official Republican campaign issue. It's not an official John McCain issue. But this keeps popping up in the blogs, and just -- the last time I filled in for Quinn and Rose, a guy sent me info about his belief that the so-called Barack Obama birth certificate is actually Photoshopped. And he has a close-up there where it looks -- the name is in there, and it is -- and Barack's name appears to have been added later. In other words, it was text over an image of a blank birth certificate, and then you enter text on top of it. And this guy is a webmaster, and he says -- you know, he says, “I work with digital images all the time, and this one looks like it's been tampered with.”

And then there's the issue of, you know, under Barack's father's race, it says “African.” What? What race is that, exactly? If you -- go look at it -- Certificate of Live Birth, State of Hawaii, Honolulu, Barack Hussein Obama the second, date of birth August 4, 1961. His mother's maiden name: Stanley Ann Durham -- last name is Stanley Ann Durham or Ann Dunham or something like that. Father's name: Barack Hussein Obama. Mother's race: Caucasian. Father's race: African. Wouldn't that be -- wouldn't that be negroid? Or black? Why would you put “African” down there? Kind of weird, isn't it? It's just weird. It's like he's hiding something. Something's not right here. And maybe he is a bona fide natural-born citizen and this could be cleared up very easily. But it's not. So, kind of weird.

Greg Johnson is an intern at Media Matters for America.