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I thought the “birther” movement was limited to extreme right-wingers that one could either be angry with or  ignore depending on one’s tolerance for total BS.  I thought it was old news: been there, done that.  But no, unfortunately it’s alive and well.   What has changed is that the face of the “birther” movement is no longer that of Orly Taitz, “the Queen of the Birthers,” but that of “The Donald.”

Donald Trump, rumored to be considering a presidential run in 2012, was busy last week rehashing the “birther” issue.  On March 23rd, he appeared on “The View”  and stated that he’s a “little skeptical” of Obama being a U.S. citizen by birth, and that every so-called “birther” who shares this view should not be so quickly dismissed as an “idiot.” Later, on “Good Morning America,”  Trump went on to say, “Growing up no one knew him [Obama]…The whole thing is very strange.”

Trump’s smooth-talking style and his characteristically cool demeanor made me,  someone who is as anti-”birther” as one could possibly be,  momentarily side with him.  Of course, President Obama should show his birth certificate. What’s the big deal?  Luckily, this fleeting moment of temporary insanity was cut short the moment that my brain kicked in, and I asked myself three basic questions:

Basic Question No. 1: Has any other President ever been required to brandish his birth certificate in public? Answer: No. No other president in our nation’s 235-year old existence has been required to do this.

Basic Question No. 2: Is it really possible that, as recently as 2008, a would-be presidential candidate could persuade the Federal Election Commission (and its equivalent bodies in the 50 states) to permit him to run for the highest office in the land without his having to demonstrate to their satisfaction that he was born in the US?  What do “birthers” think? That these folk  all just “cut him a little slack”? Is this really believable? Answer: No.  This is entirely, thoroughly, completely unbelievable.

Basic Question No. 3:  If Obama has nothing to hide, why has he not shown his birth certificate?  Answer: Wait! He has shown it– the President posted an authenticated copy of his birth certificate online during the presidential primaries and continues to display it on the site fightthesmears.com.

The release of this document has never appeased the  “birthers” who claim that this document is fake.  Total shocker, of course. On March 26th, three days after his appearance on “The View”, Trump phoned in to Geraldo Rivera’s show to argue that the short-form birth certificate (like the one shown on Obama’s site) is “some document” that doesn’t confirm anything.  Never mind that nearly all states in the U.S. issue these short-form certifications under the name “Certification of Birth,” “Certification of Live Birth” or “Certificate of Birth Registration.”  It normally includes the child’s name, sex, date and place of birth.  Sometimes, it also includes the names of the child’s parents. In his phone conversation to Rivera, Trump mentioned that he (Trump) has always been a “really smart guy” and that he had gone to “one of the best schools” in the world. It’s not immediately clear to me why he made this statement, but  it sure smells a little defensive. He admitted that some of his conservative friends had tried to dissuade him from adopting this tactic, but he would not listen.  Hmm. Is he really that dense or is he playing the same old Republican trick of repeating the same inane message over and over again, until it makes a dent in our collective political sub-conscience?

How do the “birthers” and their new king explain the fact that two of Hawaii’s major newspapers, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Star Bulletin, both printed announcements about the August 4th, 1961 birth of Barack Obama?

 

Let’s guess. Back in 1961, Obama’s parents faked these announcements as part of a grand conspiracy to someday have their son become the first black president of the United States, knowing that  he would need to be a “natural born” citizen in order to do so.  Right. Totally plausible.

Trump has now joined the ranks of muck-raking politicians such as Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, and rabid right wingers such as  Jerome Corsi, author of “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is Not Eligible to Be President”, in making ridiculously outrageous statements purely for political gain.  I had expected that someone with his business (or at least marketing) acumen would apply his experience to some of the real challenges we face such as job creation.  But no.  Instead he has decided to go the route of dirty, destructive, polarizing politics.  On March 29th, Trump provided a copy of his own birth certificate to ABC news.  Unfortunately for us, he was indeed born in the US and thus meets the”natural born” citizen requirement for running for president. That’s really too bad. Even worse, though, is the fact that the  “birther” movement whose raison d’etre is politically motivated at best, and racist at worst, is still alive and kicking rather than “deader” than dead.

image: blogs.telegraph.co.uk