“Birthers” won’t shut up. They WANT to gripe

OBAMA: Speculation will continue

President Barack Obama goofed this week when he went ahead and gave Hawaii state officials special permission to release the so-called “long form” of his birth certificate.

Obama seems to think that by making this information public, he will be able to permanently put an end to the speculation that he really wasn’t born in the United States, and therefore technically isn’t even eligible to be president.

IT’S NOT GOING to achieve that goal. In fact, I can’t help but think that Obama has merely fed this issue even more fuel for it to burn upon.

Because the kind of people who were determined to think that Obama isn’t a “real American” aren’t going to let something as technical and detailed as a birth certificate stand in their way. It's like expecting the nativists to quit thinking that people from other countries are committing a crime just by existing in the United States. These people have to be overcome politically, not reasoned with.

For all I know, the people who were goofy enough to ignore all the evidence to the contrary are going to ignore this document. We may even start getting conspiracy theories about how Hawaii state officials are in cahoots with Obama to cover up “the truth!”

They may want to believe these documents are forged.

OR MAYBE SOME of them will now try to make the issue one of why didn’t Obama just produce such documentation three years ago back during the ’08 campaign season?

The kind of people who want to believe this issue and think it significant aren’t all that rational. Heck, they’re the kinds of people who think that real estate developer Donald Trump is presidential material.

For the record, I think Trump’s use of this issue doesn’t make him a kook as much as an opportunist. He knew it would get his rhetoric about being a presidential candidate public attention in a way that nothing else emanating from his mouth would do. Even if he doesn’t run, it helps increase his public image.

For all I know, Trump and the others will continue to keep this issue alive.

BECAUSE THIS WAS never about trying to figure out where Obama was born (in Honolulu back in 1961 – just one year after the island became an official part of the United States, rather than just a territory).

It was about trying to make Obama himself appear radically different from themselves (whom they want to believe are “the norm” of this country, even though the reality is that no one individual is “the norm,” and that is what makes our society unique).

I still recall political pundit Ann Coulter dismissing Obama by saying she wants her president “to be an American,” even before anyone had concocted this goofy theory about Obama’s birthplace.

Heck, I still remember a more-conventional broadcast-type (Cokie Roberts, to be specific) complaining that Obama made a  strategic blunder by taking a winter break in Hawaii, on account of the fact that “real people” spent a winter vacation in places like South Carolina instead of an exotic tropical island.

THAT FEELING BY people who can’t accept the mood of our society in the 21^st Century isn’t going to be changed any by producing a more-detailed document than we had previously seen before.

If anything, by releasing this new information, Obama has let himself get baited into being a part of this ridiculous argument – one  that should have withered away.

He should have learned a long time ago to laugh this one off and deal with the fact that there will always be a few kooks who will cry “Wolf!”

WINFREY: The only winner?



In fact, about the only person who will benefit from all of this will be Oprah Winfrey – who is in the home-stretch of her long-running syndicated daytime television talk show.

SHE GOT OBAMA and first lady Michelle to appear on the program – taping it this week for a segment that will air Monday.

It ensures that her program on traditional television stations (she’s shifting her attention to creating her own cable television channel) will go out with a “Bang!’

A “bang” that will be at the expense of Obama, who appears to be dignifying nonsense talk in a way it never deserved.

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