Mods, please move this to the Shark Pool where it belongs, then change the title to "Moving The Goalposts".
The birther movement really is an exercise in moving the goalposts.
Here's an article on the evolution of the movement. It didn't start with the claim that Obama may not have been born in Hawaii.The movement was always focused on the idea that Obama is ineligible to be President because he's a damn foreigner.
But the original claim was that, although Obama was born in Hawaii, he did not qualify for citizenship since his father was a Kenyan and his mother was only 18. This was a misstatement of immigration law (he'd be a citizen anyway if he were born in Hawaii), but it was the original basis for the charge of non-citizenship.
Once it was recognized that the original theory was legally flawed, a new theory was proposed. He was originally a citizen, but he lost his citizenship when he moved to Indonesia or traveled to Pakistan.
When these theories were also proven to be legally flawed (citizenship is not forfeited by traveling to Pakistan, it turns out), that's when it was proposed that he was born in Kenya.
The funny thing is that the birther movement didn't gain any real traction until Obama refuted it by releasing his birth certificate (i.e., his certification of live birth). Once he released that, the birthers claimed that it was a forgery — and
then the birther movement was off and running.
Some other tidbits from the article:
The website World Net Daily, for instance, has written that “Hawaii at the time of Obama’s birth allowed births that took place in foreign countries to be registered in Hawaii.” But that law was not enacted until 1982 which was 21 years after Obama's birth was registered. Further, such a birth certificate would show the actual foreign place of birth instead of listing – as Obama’s does — Honolulu.
Hawaii law prevents the long-form record from being photocopied or released to anyone — including Obama. Obama himself would only be permitted to inspect it – not copy it or post it online.