A new line has been crossed in the seemingly never-ending controversy surrounding President Barack Obama’s birthplace. For the past few months, “birthers” — those doubting Obama’s citizenship based on his place of birth — have been calling on the president to release his full birth certificate, claiming that he was not a natural born U.S. citizen and thus cannot hold the office of president.
When Obama’s birth in Hawaii was confirmed — through several pieces of evidence — the rally to remove the president from office stooped to a new low. A fake birth certificate was circulated around the Internet, claiming Obama was born in Kenya. Unfortunately for the birthers, it’s clearly a forgery.
Aside from other flaws in the document, the certificate was supposedly issued in the Republic of Kenya, even though the country didn’t use that name until four years after Obama’s birth. These contradictions quickly were discovered and the faux certificate was disregarded.
But the controversy about this document and the “birther” movement as a whole isn’t about accuracy; it’s shameful politics.
It seems the dispute arose in the time following the election, when many pundits used things like Obama’s experiences around the world and his middle name — Hussein — as reasons why the president isn’t a “true” American. Honestly, the idea that he is less of American than any other person born in the country is laughable.
The belief here seems to be that if Obama is proved to not be an American, then somehow the election will be annulled and Arizona Sen. John McCain would take office instead. But removing Obama only would give Vice President Joe Biden the presidency, and it would probably be much harder to smear a president out of office a second time.
Even if McCain were to take over — which he can’t — he would have a much harder time confirming his place of birth than Obama. McCain was born on a military base in the Panama Canal, several thousand miles away from the United States. If all it takes to remove a president is a few people interrupting government conferences and a forged document, then McCain would be gone much quicker than Obama.
While it is easy to cast all the blame on Republicans for being upset about losing the election, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Several years ago, a fake document arose that claimed then-President George W. Bush didn’t fulfil his military obligations during his service, which was later proved false. This type of shameless forging can be seen on both sides of the political spectrum, and in no way can be considered productive
Rather than debate the issues like adults, people just seem to want to lie, cheat and forge until they get what they want. Obama is going to outlast this story by a significant degree, and at some point these people are going to need to grow up.
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