Obama’s Birth Certificate

President Obama released his Birth Certificate after two and a half years of people asking whether or not he was constitutionally eligible to actually be President of the United States. The question in most people’s minds is (including Oprah Winfrey in a taping she held for an upcoming show): "What took you so long?"

For the most part, that particular drama is now over. I was never really that concerned about it because if Obama was kicked out of the Oval Office, the next one to fill that spot would be Joe Biden. It gives me chills (and not the good ones that run "up and down you leg" like Chris Matthews had) to think of that scenario.

But it brings up another drama; the continuing saga of a whether or not we should have an African American man in the White house. I for one have never had a problem with our President being African American (is it still politically incorrect to say he’s "black"). I have a problem with this particular African American being our President. But it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s an African American. It has more to do with the fact that he’s inept and unqualified for the job. No amount of on-the-job training is going to fix this problem. The man seems incapable of learning even the basic tenets of economics or leadership, both which have been completely absent since January 20, 2009.

Peniel Joseph stated that the problem with the "birthers", as they are called, is that they suffer from "a deep seated and vicious racism" which is fundamentally connected to a white supremacism in this country". Peniel Joseph is a history professor at Tufts University. Apparently, Mr. Joseph missed the memo that we live in a "post racial" society now that the greatest country that ever existed has elected an African American to be its President.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. said, "So it is time to call this birther nonsense what it is --- not just claptrap, but profoundly racist claptrap". When tens of millions of people who live in this country are concerned because their elected leader will not provide a simple document proving that I had to provide in order to simply get a Maryland Driver’s License, this is not claptrap, much less "profoundly racist" claptrap. Obama has a problem with credibility. Not too many people believe him anymore. It’s like that old joke that you can tell when a politician is lying because his lips are moving. Here’s a clue: not everything is about race.

If the people at the Miami Herald, including you, Mr. Pitts, had done their job in the first place in 2007 instead of acting like infatuated schoolgirls hoping Barry would look your way, most of this "claptrap" would not have happened. The mainstream news outlets, both the print as well as broadcast news, asked tough questions of the conservative candidates and tossed softballs at Barak Obama. One candidate was vilified because the speaker who opened the night for his candidate dared to use Obama’s full name: Barak Hussein Obama. John McCain actually was called racist because of this apparent faux pas (And to think we conservatives are called hateful and intolerant).

And of course, we can’t omit the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has made a career of calling white people racists. He told the Politico that Donald Trump’s campaign to get Obama to release his birth certificate was deeply rooted in race. "Any discussion of [Obama’s] birthplace is a code word… It calls upon ancient racial fears." Jesse Jackson is an enigma in and of himself. He’s a reverend who has never pastored a church and a politician who has never held an elected office. He did march with Dr. Martin Luther King, though. I really think that Dr. King, if he were alive today, would be distancing himself from Jesse Jackson and others like him because with Jesse Jackson, it’s all about the color of skin rather than the content of character. They lack any content of character at all. The only reason people like him continue to bring up race is that without the "race card", they have no authority and no following. Without racial tension, the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharptons of this world would have no place to go, no purpose for being here and no platform from which to speak.

I’m not saying that racism does not exist. Unfortunately, it does. In its ugliest form, it has caused untold harm to millions of innocent people worldwide. We all identify with people who look like we do, hold our own same core beliefs, and have similar tastes as we do. Heavy metal rock fans don’t hang out with the Euro-Techno beat crowd, the Country Western industry or the hip-hop crowd. Personally, outside of my immediate family, I don’t have many friends that are liberal in their politics or who vote the Democrat ticket. That is not racism. That is called personal preference.

To some degree, we all have a bit of racial preference in us to the extent that we all feel most comfortable with people of our own culture, people of our own nationality, people who look like we do, talk like we do, think like we do and act like we do. This is how we were all wired from birth. My first dog did not like people dressed in coveralls, like workmen used to wear in the early 60’s. She had a bad experience with someone in coveralls and from that day forth, she would growl at anyone wearing coveralls, even my dad. My first wife’s dog did not like people in uniform. Right after we married, I joined the Army National Guard and came home one day in uniform and met a very angry Irish Setter. Once she saw that it was me, she stopped growling and came bounding towards me wanting to play. She got past the external appearance and realized I was still me, just in clothes she was not used to seeing me wear.

In other words, once we get to know a little about the person in question (i.e. vetting them to understand who they really are), the race issue becomes moot. Then we can have a dialogue about the issues without all the invectives and name calling. The issue is character. Obama has proved his character by his actions over the past two and a half years. In the words of the Prophet Daniel (a Jew, different culture, different look, different language, yet character that stretches as far as the eye can see), : " You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting."