Jul 29, 2009

Last fall I wrote a column on this very website in which I was rather critical of then-Senator Barack Obama, and at the time I was worried that I might have been overly so. It seems that my misgivings were unfounded, however, as there appear to be no end to the outrages perpetrated by our quote/unquote "president."

I put the term "president" in quotes, of course, because as we all know, the US Constitution states that in order to become president, one must be a "natural born" citizen of the United States. Well then, Mr. "President," I ask you, sir, with all due respect: other than having produced your birth certificate and multiple newspaper accounts pertaining to your birth, and other than having been born in the United States to a United States citizen mother, what have you ever done to prove that you are a natural born citizen of the United States? The public you claim to serve demands answers, sir!

With nothing but an official birth certificate and multiple corroborating sources to prove to us that you were born in the United States, Mr. "President," we can only conclude that it is highly likely that you were born somewhere else. Probably like Africa or somewhere. And don't try to convince us that citizenship was automatically conferred upon you at your birth, sir. After all, a technicality governing the citizenship of children born between December 23, 1952 and November 13, 1986 could possibly be interpreted to suggest that since your mother was only 18 when you were born, she was too young for automatic citizenship to be transferred to you upon your birth in a foreign country. And with nothing but a birth certificate, newspaper records and the personal accounts of anyone and everyone who was around when you were born in Hawaii to go on, a foreign country is exactly where we can only assume you were born.

Given that, Mr. "President," can you possibly expect us to believe that a minor and legally shaky technicality, which possibly may not even have applied in your case, would have been overlooked and that your natural born citizenship as the child of an adult American woman who had lived her entire life in the United States would have been inevitably rubber-stamped without incident, comment or reservation? Please, Mr. "President." Next you'll be asking us to believe that your professed Christian faith and your regular attendance at Christian churches for the last couple of decades somehow mean that you aren't a practicing Muslim!

Another provision in the Constitution requires that those who serve as president must have been a permanent resident of the United States for at least fourteen years. Well, Mr. "President," forgive me for bringing up such a potentially "sensitive" topic, but how are we to know that you meet this stipulation? Are we to rely on nothing more than the word of the hundreds or perhaps thousands of people with whom you personally interacted since moving back to Chicago after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991? Or on your history of employment, public service and community work in the Chicago area during that same period of time, all of which could be considered a matter of easily verifiable public record? I don't know, sir… it appears as though you are on very this ice as far as this Constitutional requirement goes.

And while we're on the subject, Mr. "President," the Constitution also states that a United States president must be at least 35 years of age. Now, other than the aforementioned birth certificate, independent media accounts of your birth in 1961 and the recollections of many of your mother's friends and family, what proof do we even have that you meet this requirement, sir? Yes, you were a member of the state championship basketball team at Punahou School in 1979, and your participation with the team was recorded in countless photographs and on video and was witnessed by several thousand people firsthand, establishing definitively that you had reached puberty by 1979 and that it would therefore be physically, scientifically, and biologically impossible for you to be any younger than your early 40s at the very least. But at the risk of making you look silly, Mr. "President," I must wonder what fantasy world you inhabit in which such facts could be considered "evidence" of your "actual age?"

In short, Mr. "President," as Ricky Ricardo* is commonly believed to have said even though he never actually did: you've got some 'splaining to do!

*    *    *

* A television character played by actor/musician Desi Arnaz, who was not a natural born American citizen. Coincidence? You decide!

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