Scenario A: The supposedly inept president of the United States carefully planned and orchestrated the worst terrorist attack on American soil in our history. Though “only” 3,000 people died, the plan was to kill many more by simultaneously attacking the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and either the U.S. Capitol or the White House itself on Sept. 11, 2001.
Hundreds of people, including personnel from myriad agencies, participated. According to some versions of Scenario A, explosives were placed at the World Trade Center to ensure success. In other versions, all of “the Jews” working there were tipped off by some phone bank run by the Mossad. In every version, however, the U.S. government was in on it, and everyone involved kept the biggest secret in American history.
Then there’s Scenario B: An ambitious and extremely clever politician, who has at best been selectively forthcoming about large chunks of his youth, lied about his place of birth so he could be eligible for the presidency.
To further this scheme, he has arranged for the full and/or original version of his birth certificate to remain under lock and key. At most, a handful of supporters and lawyers are in on the whole thing.
Now, which one is more believable?
The only reason this question has any salience is the repetition in the media that the GOP is riven - absolutely riven, I tells ya - with Birthers, which is supposedly a sign of the GOP's descent into nuttery. The once redoubtable Charles Johnson has taken to labeling any GOP figure who stands next to a Birther to be "Nirther" and declares it the End of the GOP. Meanewhile, Trutherism is common on the Left - witness Van Jones. And certainly, mainstream Dems have seized on every possible scrap of evidence that might establish that Bush "knew" about 9/11. A media double standard disadvantaging the GOP?! Say it ain't so!
I don't think I have ever put across the Free Will Position Paper on the Birth Certificate issue, but here are some First Principals.
1. Obama has been cagey enough about all of this to generate some of the controversy. Don't mean to blame the victim, but he and his supporters have gone out of their way to obscure the issue, rather than release the famed "long form."
2. A significant part of the problem arises as much from Hawaii's half-assed record keeping.
3. It's a wash.
More important, I don't think we can ignore the fact that Obama's mother was an American citizen, born and raised in the Heartland. That's close enough for me, close enough for jazz, and close enough for government work. Obama is an American citizen by any widely understood definition. Birthers are kindly asked to give this a rest.
Also, the provision in the Constitution requiring any president to be a natural born citizen is on many people's short list of Provisions in the Constitution That I Would Remove, If Given A Chance. I am sure it made sense to The Founders, who feared British aristocrats swanning into the young republic, spreading around some cash, and buying the executive branch. How likely is that to happen now? It's hopelessly anachronistic, and does not reflect the world we live in today. Are we really going to say to a hard working immigrant who came here at age 11 that he can't be president? What about an American citizen who happened to been born in Hong Kong (or wherever) because his mother went into premature labor? Etc.
Rather than being separated by a two-month sea voyage, we are now separated from foreign countries by hours-long airplane flights. American culture and political ideals are sufficiently widespread that people in other countries can be more attuned to what it means to be an American than the typical ACORN activist yelling that we need to destroy The System. An outdated requirement like "natural birth" for presidents has little, if any, relevance. It certainly has little to offer as a means to attack Obama.
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