Certifiable: Obama Releases His Birth Certificate

Don't have much to say about Obama releasing his birth certificate. Not only was I never a "birther," I am on record as saying the times were too grave to be sitting around worrying over birth certificates. Still, it's an odd enough story that you can't help reacting:

1. at least now, we won't be hearing (much) from the sort of creepy people who kept the birther rumor going: the right-wing WND types who'll be writing about UFO's and crop circles next week, the left-wing "Clinton War Room" types who first propounded this "theory," and the media jerks who hectored John Boehner over this matter more than they've hectored the president for the manifest failures of his administration.

2. Donald Trump gets results, I guess. But I don't see how Trump is different from all of those celebrities and semi-celebrities who earned cheap applause during the 2000's by ranting about George Bush.

3. Birth certificate or not, if your grandparents lived in the state you say you were born in, and there were birth announcements in the newspapers, and your mother was a US citizen (and born in Kansas, no less), then you are a US citizen as far as I'm concerned.

4. What were birthers trying to accomplish? Did they honestly think Obama would have to step down as president if it turned out he had not been born in the US? If your answer to that question is "yes," you are officially a member of the vast lunatic fringe.

5. Gotta love the theory that Obama was coolly stringing his antagonists along. Actually, he ended up looking like an oddball with something to hide, resulting in poll numbers showing a plurality of Americans weren't sure whether he was born overseas. Smoove.

6. The "natural birth" requirement just might be the most anachronistic provision in the Constitution. American ideals are so widespread that immigrants arriving in the US today have a better grasp of what makes this country great than an alleged American like Van Jones ranting about "the System."

7. Like Obama, I'd like to get back to discussing the serious issues of the day like the out of control debt, rising energy prices, reducing the size of government, reining in the EPA, etc. Looking at that list, I'm guessing Obama would prefer to discuss other "serious" issues like when he's going to be on Oprah! next.