April 28, 2011

And now this from the “you can’t win” department.

President Obama has released his long-form birth certificate. Here are a few of the responses, first from the loyal opposition:
Mitt Romney. "What President Obama should really be releasing is a jobs plan."

The Republican National Committee Chairman. "Unfortunately, his campaign politics and talk about birth certificates is distracting him from our number one priority - our economy."
Any opportunity for a cheap shot will do.

Here’s a sampling from the birthers and other Obama-conspiracy theorists:
Donald Trump. “I’d want to look at it, but I hope it’s true so that we can get on to much more important matters, . . .” — you know, like the ones he’s been talking about; oh, wait, this is what he’s talked about — “so the press can stop asking me questions about it . . . .” And why did they ask, Don? Apparently recalling that he had stirred this up, he decided that he, not the press, deserved the credit, and preened: “I feel I've accomplished something really, really important and I'm honored by it."

An aide to a Texas Republican who has introduced a bill that would require proof of citizenship from presidential candidates. "What I've seen online, what they produced today, still says ‘certificate of live birth’ across the top. We want to see a birth certificate. The one that we have that says 'birth certificate' is from Mombasa, Kenya, with his footprint on it. He has still not produced an American birth certificate." Actually, the supposed document from Mombasa is titled “Certificate of Birth.” Also, it’s a forgery, but that hardly matters in this debate.

Philip Berg (who filed a lawsuit alleging that Obama was born in Kenya). "I'm not that concerned with the birth certificate. Unless there is evidence that he renounced his Indonesian citizenship, we believe he is an illegal president." That’s one fallback position; here’s another:

Andy Martin (perennial candidate and “King of the Birthers”). "The pressure for his college records is going to become relentless."

Birther Orly Taitz (on the identification of Obama’s father). "In those years . . . nobody wrote ‘African’ as a race, it just wasn't one of the options. It sounds like it would be written today, in the age of political correctness, and not in 1961 when they wrote ‘white’ or ‘Asian’ or 'Negro'." Never mind that Obama Sr. was African in a literal sense.

And we have the all-around, general purpose dimwits, such as
Rush Limbaugh. "The two things about this that really shock me the most: one, that Obama was born at all. I thought it was a miraculous conception. And secondly, that his parents are actually mortals. . . . I mean, here they have presented this guy as 'the Messiah,' as 'the One,' and those people aren't born. They just descend from the heavens." If he’s going to indulge in sacrilegious sarcasm, Rush needs to (re?)read Matthew 1:18-25 although, given his muddled thinking, it might not help much.

It will be interesting to see what effect the long-form certificate will have on the amazingly large fragment of the population which believes that Mr. Obama is not a citizen. It may not be great. For many of them, he would have to change the color of his skin.