This is a partial defense of the “birthers”, and it will be short. I have two points to make along the way, which are:
- One way or another, it’s over. Get over it.
- The president has acted shamefully, but attacking him for it is a trap. Get out of it.
People who wanted to see a shred of evidence that the president is eligible for the post naturally fall into a number of types:
- Kooks, racists, conspiracy theorists
- People sick of the president’s imperious attitude
- Anybody surprised to find that this requirement has never been enforced.
I’m in the last two groups. No doubt there’s a lot of overlap, but I got no kook in me. I accept the birth certificate as presented (I was never all that excited about it, but I admit it bothered me: why shouldn’t we get to see what the constitution so clearly requires in a modern context?), and despite some sketchy details about it, this issue is done.
Big Deal
Nathan Goulding at NRO posted a plausible explanation of “layergate”, and then confirmed it:
I’ve confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home.
One of the commenters there (Never_Outraged) finished up a very good argument by noting that a trim white teen-ager giving birth in Kenya would not have escaped the scrutiny of Democrat or Republican opponents in 2008, and a subsequent forgery of evidence will not escape scrutiny in 2012. He summarizes:
Come on folks. The problem is not that Obama wasn’t born in the USA, it’s that he doesn’t seem to have allegiance to what many of us call American principles, or even the American people. That, the the simple fact that many of us who approve of policies to negate the residual effects of slavery and Jim Crow know that Obama, and his family for all generations, were never subjected to it. And finally, there is the problem of Obama’s contempt for the question, indirectly indicating contempt for the people.
So it’s over neither because anything has been proven nor disproven. No, it’s over because from now on the only traction this issue will get is whenever the MSM needs to paint the right as dangerous morons. The King has finally acceded to the most minor of requests from the peasantry, and now if we do not fall to our knees in gratitude, the Church of broadcasting will have us beheaded. Frankly, seeing documents on the internet doesn’t mean what it used to, ever since the Rathergate debacle when CBS tried to throw an American election. Now we have a President who only got where he is because all of the damned media chipped in to throw the next one.
No document offered online can meet proper standards of proof. This is why there are people like notaries public, and Secretaries of State in each of the fifty States, whose job it is to “certify” for us that proper documentation has been presented. What we learned early on in this unpleasantness is that not a single one of those states adequately discharged their duty to the people, and perhaps never have. Perhaps they never will.
I have to show a birth certificate for a number of things because proof of origin is a legitimate requirement. Personally, I would like to see each State’s Secretary of State require the long-form original for *their* eyes, so that they may factually and truthfully certify that the candidate meets the existing requirements.
Even if he had been born in Moscow and schooled in Karachi, it would take an impeachment by Harry Reid to get him ousted. Yeah, that’s what I thought. So move on. No document offered online can meet proper standards of proof, so stop demanding it. It’s a trap.
Big Jerk
This should have been a minor procedural question, asked and answered within a news cycle or two. The fact that it was not can be laid right at the feet of Barry Antoinette, our imperial president.
Some questions do not truly matter until they are asked, and then they truly do. In a relationship, even an oddball, off-base question can reveal a real problem if it is not answered in a civil manner, but instead with snarling anger.
What’s the point in having a requirement on the books, if verification is off the table? There are good and bad reasons for this question (of proof) to have been asked first of Obama. That does not make the question itself out of bounds, and I feel that his response, to play political games with it, has been shameful.
This is, after all, a constitutional matter, and it’s more than a little disingenuous to call it a “distraction” when he could simply have released it three years ago, taken the moral high ground right away, and been less divisive. It is inappropriate to stand on one principle when it is “trumped” (excuse me) by others.
The President as the chief public servant has a duty to serve the public, and sometimes, his privacy may take a hit.
I would like to think that if he had it all to do over again, he would release it promptly; if releasing it now is good because the distraction is bad, then releasing it earlier would be better, right? Yeah, I don’t think he would either.
And that’s the fundamental dishonesty which pervades so much of this man’s conduct, and which so infuriates the right. With everything from closing Guantanamo, to extending tax rates as they were, to ending the wars upon taking office, to not releasing his birth certificates; he argues as if from a principle one way, then turns about face as if on a different principle. Admit it; this Marxist has nothing but contempt for Americans, as demonstrated in his callus reversals and refusals.
There are many kooks who have demanded to see the birth certificate. But there are also a great number of people who are just plain fed-up with this empty suit’s political maneuvering even while the country collapses.
I reserve the right to question my government without being called out for ThoughtCrime.
