| Feb. 8th, 2012

Los Angeles College Holds Key to "Barry Soetoro" Mystery

By Exception Staff | August 09, 2010

Who is "Barry Soetoro"? As this Google trends graph shows, lots of people have been searching for this fellow since 2008.

That's because Barry Soetoro is supposedly the real name of President Barack Obama.

According to conspiracy theorists, Soetoro is Obama's legal name. Maybe he changed it to get financial breaks during college as an international student. Maybe the CIA is involved, or something.

Or maybe these "birthers" need to stop digging because it looks like nothing is there.

Thanks to the fact-checking efforts of PolitiFact.com, we know that one key piece of evidence for the birthers (the claim that Obama attended Los Angeles' Occidental College under the Soetoro surname) is completely bogus:

The falsehood starts with the claim that Obama's transcript was released. That's not true, according to Jim Tranquada, director of communications at Occidental College. No court has ordered Occidental to release the transcript...

When Obama entered Occidental, he was known as Barry Obama. Around the time he left, he preferred Barack. Soetoro was the last name of Obama's stepfather, with whom he lived in Indonesia before moving in with his grandparents in the United States.

"All the alumni and students that I have spoken to knew him as Barry or Barack Obama," said Tranquada. And he registered under the name Obama, not Soetoro, according to the college.

Why won't this conspiracy die away? Share your thoughts below.