To renew my driver's license the other day, I had to show my social security card, two proofs of residency, and my birth certificate (in addition to those, my wife had to show her marriage license). Like Obama, I couldn't find my birth certificate, so I had to send off to Lassen County, Cal. to get a certified copy. Not a photo copy of the short form, but a certified copy with that official stamp on it. All told, the b.c. and license renewal cost me about a hundred bucks, just to prove I'm a citizen, which they already knew anyway. And unlike Obama, I have an all-American pedigree, descending from a father and grandfather who fought in a bunch of our nation's wars. All this just to be allowed to drive a car. But to be president of the entire country, I wouldn't have to show any of that. It's the arrogance that annoys, and the free pass issued by the legal authorities. Since Obie's on a spending binge, I'll stop complaining if he'll just reimburse me for the hundred bucks.
I don't know how many birthers are really out there, people who believe, or did believe, that Obama was not a citizen. I never could because it would have amounted to an act of imposture unheard of since The Manchurian Candidate. I haven't even taken the trouble to research what the constitution means by a 'natural born citizen.' But I do know that when people who have lived in the same place most of their lives are being asked to prove that they are who the Keepers of Records already know they are, resentment tends to build toward those who are exempted from the trouble.From all appearances, it seems that Donald Trump got Obama to take the trouble. He got done what no establishment Republican could, mostly because they wouldn't touch the issue with a ten foot soundbite. This same establishment is now telling us that Trump is not a serious candidate. I think they ought to be more cautious in their claims, coming as they do from a rambunctious phalanx of new congressmen and women who charged into Washington all gung-ho to cut spending, balance the budget, and repeal ObieCare, and who then proceeded to cave to Obama's budget offer in terror of being blamed for shutting down the government and wanting to kill old people by restructuring Medicare. I bet they'll cave on the debt ceiling issue as well.
I think we're living in a time when people are sick and tired of bravado backed by cowardice. Maybe they're not sure what to make of Trump, but one thing they don't see (yet) is cowardice. And I think they're sick and tired of being told whom they must take seriously. Why shouldn't they be, when the people they elect don't take them seriously?
3 comments:
I think you're spot-on, Bill. And I think that arrogance of Obama's is probably one of the reasons he withheld the certificate all this time. "How dare they question me."
Trivia question: I'm adopted, and my original birth certificate is court-sealed. I've never seen it. The birth certificate I've used all my life for getting a driver's license, passport, etc., has (I think) the time of birth and city on it (I'll have to check to see if it has the hospital name), but it's been altered, and everyone knows it's been altered, by having my adopted parents' names put on it instead of my biological parents' names. I was idly wondering last night what this would mean for my ability to run for president in a state that did pass a birth certificate requirement.
I don't think a state can pass a requirement that applies to the presidency. Maybe for governor. If you're thinking of running, I'd consult the lawyers.
Here's a hypothetical: suppose some guy who really wasn't a citizen got elected president, but was later found out. What would happen? What could be done about it?
I dunno. The VP would become President? I have no idea.
But I did hear some states were going to pass this requirement for being on the presidential ballot--that you had to show your long-form original certificate. It hadn't been challenged, though, as to whether it was constitutional or not.
I saw a post at American Thinker today that reminded me a lot of what you're saying here, but I didn't save the link. The writer (whose name wasn't familiar to me, as I recall) was saying that Obama wanted someone to laugh at and strung this out so that he could make people who oppose him on any subject look stupid. It made a lot of sense, somehow, because that's really how Obama _does_ view anyone who questions or disagrees with him.
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