On Wednesday, the White House released President Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate in response to claims that he is not a natural-born citizen, rendering him ineligible to hold his office. The release of this private document should silence conspiracy theorists, but it comes with a cost.
In attempting to set the record straight, the president has reinvigorated the fire. Some critics are demanding that the certificate be checked for authenticity while others insist it’s a forgery.
The fact that Obama took the time out of his day to address this issue alone lends it more credibility than it deserves. It’s unbelievable that responding to some conspiracy — promoted by Donald Trump and the right-wing fringe — made it onto his schedule at all.
A dangerous precedent has been set. It will be much easier for the public to push people holding elected office to release private information to satisfy their own curiosities.
But is this really the best we have to ask of our elected officials? Have we degraded so much that we no longer debate our opponents on their positions but instead make pointed personal attacks?
Some have suggested that the recent saliency of this issue was a strategic move by Donald Trump, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, attempting to distract the president from his agenda and paint him in a bad light.
However, in his statement today, President Obama turned the tables on his accusers, saying that he’s been dealing with issues facing the American people today and doesn’t have time to deal with this “silliness.”
The Republican presidential candidate in 2008, Sen. John McCain, was born in the Panama Canal zone on a navy base. Though a lifelong citizen, he was admittedly born off of American soil, yet his eligibility for the presidency was never in jeopardy.
This uneven treatment leads to questions about the people asking the questions. Were they made because people legitimately didn’t believe that Obama was born in Hawaii, or was something else at play? When else in history have we asked so much of a president?
Many of the claims that President Obama was born in Kenya are followed with “and he’s a Muslim.” Is this entire controversy based out of the fact that a few closed-minded individuals are still uncomfortable with the fact that our president isn’t white? In the year 2011, are we really that shallow?
It appears that these conspiracy theorists still aren’t satisfied. Donald Trump has taken up a new cause today: seeking out President Obama’s school records. He isn’t convinced that the president was a good enough student to gain admission to and graduate from Columbia University and Harvard Law School.
Perhaps the most absurd aspect of this entire fiasco is the very fact that it’s dominating the news. It has taken the lead over things like devastating storms and economic uncertainty. Our country is faced with serious issues each and every day. We have elected serious people to try and solve them. And all we care about is a birth certificate?
In our world of 24-hour news cycles and instant news, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of a scandal. But when it takes precedence over the serious problems plaguing us, we’ve gone too far. It’s time for everyone to remember what’s important and get back to the issues at hand.