Up until now, I have never posted about President Obama's birth
certificate, because I don't want to give those who claim he is
not a U.S. citizen the attention they so desperately seek. I
don't even want to describe the matter as a "controversy,"
because to do so suggests that there is a serious dispute over
Obama's place of birth. To any sane human being, there is no
controversy. Obama has produced an
authentic certificate of live birth from the state of Hawaii
that clearly shows he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu,
Hawaii at 7:24 p.m. State officials have confirmed the document
as legitimate and have
stated that such facts would have to be verified by the state
before they appear on the document. And if that isn't enough, the
fact is corroborated by a contemporaneous
newspaper birth announcement.
While I'd like to continue to ignore this story entirely, it's
hard to do when a figure like Rush Limbaugh is giving it
credence, declaring this
week that, "Barack Obama has yet to have to prove that he's a
citizen. All he has to do is show a birth certificate. He
has yet to have to prove he's a citizen." If he addresses the
issue at all, Limbaugh should be using his perch to explain why
this story is complete nonsense. Doing so would help to keep
these citizenship conspiracy theorists in the fringe, where they
belong. Instead, he's just encouraging them. I've lost a ton of
respect for Limbaugh this week.
Meanwhile, Florida Rep. Bill Posey has also added cover to the
lunatic conspiracy mongers by offering a House
bill aimed at having future presidential candidates produce
birth certificates. It has 9 Republican co-sponsors so far, and
all of them should be embarrassed: Marsha Blackburn, Dan Burton,
John Campbell, John Carter, John Abney Culberson, Bob Goodlatte,
Kenny Merchant, Rander Neugebauer, and Ted Poe.
Some who attempt to take neutral ground on this issue ask, why
doesn't Obama just release his original birth certificate and put
this matter to rest? There are two reasons. The first is that it
would obviously not put the issue to rest, because the conspiracy
theorists have demonstrated that they do not care about facts. At
this point, anybody who questions whether Obama is a citizen will
not be convinced otherwise because of a document released by the
White House. But beyond that, there's absolutely no reason for
Obama to cave into these people. Doing so would set a standard in
the future so that people can start whatever insane rumors they
want about an elected official, and then the burden is on the
official to dispute them. It's no different than those calling
for an investigation of whether 9/11 was an inside job.
This is the last thing that I intend to write on the issue,
because I'd prefer to concentrate my energy on laying out why
Obama's ideas and actual policy proposals will have disastrous
consequences for the nation, just one American criticizing
another.
