The White House Releases Barack Obama's Birth Certificate

Barack Obama released his birth certificate, mocking those who do not believe every word uttered (about his private life, his official policies, or his government promises, etc) by the politician that he (in spite of everything) is, and who remain skeptical about taking the claims of his supporters for holy writ. The occupant of the Oval Office said that

We’re not going to be able to do it [come together and solve America's problems] if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers.

As Lloyd Green has written,

It is not necessary to have an opinion about where President Obama was born to know that his lack of candor has cost him public trust. Obama’s approval ratings are in the mid-40s, while his disapproval ratings hover at the 50 percent mark. The president's release of his birth certificate feels forced. Obama should have released his birth certificate as a candidate.

In this hyper-media driven world, the public expects to know everything about their elected officials, and they often do. And when they do not, they become curious and then they become suspicious. And once those suspicions set-in, critics and others feel free to fill-in the gaps. This is what happened to Obama.

As Scott Shapiro has written,

Mainstream news organizations did not want to get grouped in with “birthers” because they had been compared effectively to the Sept. 11 “truther” movements, and anyone who raised birth-certificate questions was labeled paranoid, crazy and even racist.

However, there’s a big difference between people who just wanted to see Mr. Obama’s birth certificate and those who believe that our own government caused the worst terrorist attack in American history, especially when there already is a mountain of evidence pointing to al Qaeda as the perpetrator. With the Obama birth-certificate issue, the archive of evidence was slim, and his refusal to release the more extensive version of his birth certificate rightfully created more suspicion.

In fact, the Obama birth-certificate issue is more similar to what happened when President Clinton refused to give a straight answer about his indiscretions in the White House. The more the president evaded the issue, the more curious and upset people became.

Indeed; as I have written in an in-depth post on the subject, there is an unseen side to the issue that has remained, and that remains, uncovered:

Most damning of all, when you pause to think of it, the castigators' proof — if it can be called that — all lies in one fact … and that fact is that Obama is a man, a person whose word should never be doubted, who is capable of no lying, no evil, no chicanery. The person who ridicules the "Birther" theory as inane has no more proof [or didn't have any until today] than the born-in-Hawaii skeptic of where Obama was actually born: his only argument — beyond the contention that the certificate of live birth and the newspaper clipping are incontrovertible proof that are not, can not be, fakes, bureaucratic mistakes, or misinterpretations — is the indisputable "truth" that Obama is someone whose honesty should not — should never — be questioned.

When you think about it, it might be less worrying that some do not believe Obama was born in the United States (because of the circumstances linked to his entire childhood, much of it abroad) than that some are utterly convinced he must be born in the United States (because the Chicago pol is allegedly a sainted figure who can do, who can say no evil, who is incapable of lying or of falsifying documents).