Mr Obama said he was bemused over the conspiracy theories over his birthplace, and said that the obsession over the "sideshow" issues was a distraction in a "serious time". "We're not going to solve our problems if we get distracted by carnival acts and sideshow barkers,
We do not have time for this kind of silliness, we've got big stuff to do, I've got big stuff to do," he said. Earlier, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said: "The president feels this (controversy) is bad for the country, that it is not healthy for the political debate."
Mr Obama's 2008 presidential campaign had previously released a shorter regular birth certificate issued by Hawaii authorities after conservative critics and pundits fanned rumors that he was not American born.
The version released by the White House on Wednesday was a copy of a long-form, original document made at the time of his birth and kept since in official records in Obama's native state.
