What is it about President-elect Barack Obama that incites the most hysterical conspiracy theories?

One of the longest running is the theory that he isn't actually an American citizen. This idea rests on the fact that the Obama campaign has released only a copy of his Hawai'i birth certificate rather than the original.

Under Hawai'i's privacy laws, the state is not allowed to release birth information of this kind to just anyone. It does make copies available to people with a legitimate interest and has done so for Obama, who has made the document public.

Not good enough for the conspiracy theorists, including former Obama political opponent Alan Keyes, who has filed suit in California demanding that Hawai'i's electoral votes for Obama be withheld until he provides documentary proof he is a U.S. citizen.

Whatever are they thinking? To accept that Obama is not a natural-born citizen, you would have to believe that some 47 years ago his family managed a magnificent conspiracy that tricked the state Health Department, Kapi'olani Hospital and the local newspapers (which published birth announcements sent to them from the Health Department) into believing something that was not so.

And why? Because apparently the couple thought that nearly a half-century later this little boy might wish to become president of the United States, so they had better cook the records? It doesn't make sense.

One conspiracy theorist is convinced Obama was born in his father's homeland of Kenya (somehow mother and father slipped away from their studies in Hawai'i to get back to Africa in time for the birth of their son, then zipped back to the Islands and began building this false paper trail).

This would be laughable enough except for the fact that it shows there are still people out there who don't believe Obama is "American" enough to be president. They're willing to believe anything. After all, he has the "wrong" name, comes from the "wrong" place and is the "wrong" color. It's a theme that was played subtly and not so subtly by his opponents during the campaign.

It will take time to get past all this. Barack Obama is all-American all right, and sooner or later people will get it.

Whoops!

In a column last week I somehow managed to place Obama and Tammy Duckworth, who may get a spot in his administration, as being from Michigan rather than Illinois. It was a slip of the keyboard.

Jerry Burris' column appears Wednesdays in this space. See his blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com/akamaipolitics. Reach him at jrryburris@yahoo.com.