In the grand scheme of things some issues of little import, and even less substance, seem to be immortal. This morning, President Obama released his "Long Form" birth certificate. This certificate lists his place of birth as Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961 and is signed by his mother and the doctor that delivered him. It is certified as a true and correct copy of the record on file by the Hawaiian State Registrar of the Department of Health, dated April 25, 2011.
Now, do you think that the right-wing, neo-conservative, Tea Baggers accept this? Of course not! Let us go through some of the responses from a review of select conservative "news media" outlets.
"It is obviously a forgery. Why else would it take so long to come up with it?" At the risk of seeming impolite and answering a question with a question, why would it take so long to produce a forged document? It would not. A forged document would be easily produced in maybe a week or ten days, assuming that some expert forgers were used. The CIA does it all the time, passports, identification, you name it. Foreign governments have been caught conterfeiting U.S. currency with the goal of destabilizing our economy. They made near perfect copies of cash and some of it is floating around in circulation, but no one knows.
Would a President, with the kind of viscious, right-wing enemies that President Obama has, take a risk of producing a forgery? It would take a conspiracy to back it up that would be impossible to maintain! Let's see, who would be required to participate: The State Registrar of the Department of Health for the State of Hawaii, The Governor of Hawaii, all the administrative personnel that might have had access to the document and could testify, the doctor that signed it (assuming he is still alive), nurses at the hospital in attendence, anyone that participated in the forging of the document...and the list just keeps getting longer. Do you really think that ALL of these people would remain silent? Donald Trump's current allegations regarding the President's caliber as a student notwithstanding, does anyone think he would think he could pull it off? Yes, I know, sometimes the bigger the lie, the easier it is to slip it by, but come-on.
I know that in spite of the fact that there are incredibly logical arguments against it, this is not the last we will hear of this argument. The "birthers" will be like the the gunman on the grassy knoll, always alleged, but never proven. If we are lucky, we will get a chance to hear new and different conspiracy theories regarding how Barack Obama is some sort of pretender to the throne. New and different will be at least more palatable than the droning of the same old stuff, "He wasn't born here. He's not legally qualified to be President." We can now move on to the, "His middle name is 'Hussein'. He must be a Muslim [...and therefore a terrorist]". I so look forward to hearing this one repeated like an old vynyl record with a scratch on it [please note the sarcasm dripping from the words here].
Even his education is a real non-issue. It certainly was for George W. Bush. What was it he said about being a "C" student at Yale? The hypocrisy is too incredible to bear and the irony that the Right would now have the guts to complain about the grades of a student at Columbia and Harvard Law School, is just too thick. It is often asked, "What do you call the guy that graduated last in his class at medical school? Doctor!" I don't care if he did get "C"'s (and I don't know that he did) at Columbia and Harvard Law, we still call him, "Mr. President". He can still practice law after he leaves office and he still has degrees from two of the most prestigious universities this country has to offer to hang on his wall, one written in Latin, by the way. You Right-Wing Bubbas that are just ticked off that Barack Obama is President will have to find another issue to gain any credibility. The "Birther" argument isn't going to work, and the "he isn't smart enough" argument isn't going to work either, certainly after George W. Bush was elected by the Right.
We have far too many things to worry about in our society, like the economy, national debt, crime and so much more to even begin to start to deal with the kind of minutia that this issue and others represent. Can we move on and start to discuss those things that have meaning and importance?
I fear that our democracy is in jeopardy, for as Thomas Jefferson said, "If we're going to have a successful democratic society, we have to have a well educated and healthy citizenry". Our society is becoming a bunch of morons.
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