Chris Matthews is no birther, but he still found himself asking the same question raised by many who doubt Barack Obama was born in the U.S.

"I am not a birther, I am an enemy of the birthers," Matthews made clear on 'Hardball With Chris Matthews' (weekdays, 5PM ET on MSNBC), before pointing out that the only Obama birth certificate that has been made public is not the original, but rather a digitized document that doesn't have any signatures and may contain less information.

"Why has the president himself not demanded that they put out the initial documents?" Matthews asked.

As was later pointed out on the show, Obama's birth was announced at the time in two Hawaii papers. So if he was born in Kenya, as the birthers suggest, we're talking about a deception that began an improbable 49 years ago.