April 23, 2011

The Paradox of the Uncirculated Two-Million-Dollar Bill

By Richard Kantro

Who might be on it? Hint: "He doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills."[1]

On my first trip to DC, at age eight, I was indifferent to most of the imposing, colonnaded white marble. But I do vividly remember the large bills at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing: the austere five-, the spectacular ten-, and the awesome hundred-thousand-dollar flavors. Unfamiliar portraits and big numbers hinted at the doubtless great deeds of lesser-known Great Men.

I was disappointed to learn that no, I could never have a $100,000 bill, the one with that Wilson guy's perturbed quizzical glower. Nobody can have one. They existed solely for the government's own internal use. These bills were never introduced into general circulation, and ordinary citizens were not allowed -- didn't have standing, you might say -- to possess them. Although some are reputed to be in the hands of collectors, technically they're illegal to own.[2]

I never knew, and I still don't, what Wonderful Thing it was that President Wilson did -- if any -- to get himself on the $100G bill. But there's another president associated with a different piece of paper, which is far more valuable. He, certainly, did nothing affirmative to get his name on it. It, too, has never been released into circulation by the Government. It, too, is much sought after by private, uh, collectors. With a demonstrated worth of two million dollars[3] and counting, it's right up there with the Mickley 1793 Ameri. Chain Cent[4], or the Treskilling Yellow.[5] And, unlike those, it's getting more expensive by the moment.

But you can't invest in this rarity. Because that single piece of paper, of course, is the near-legendary, mythical, official long-form birth certificate of one Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., allegedly of Honolulu, Hawaii. And why is it worth two million dollars and counting? Because that's what it has cost its namesake thus far.

You might ask: at what surreptitious auction -- on what shadowy black market exchange -- behind what alley -- on the steamy docks of what foreign port -- to what documents thief -- hidden in what contraband -- or to what rough thieves and desperate men -- was such a bounty paid for this precious rarity? Why, none of the above. Mr. Obama has willingly paid this king's ransom to his lawyers: not to get it for him, but to keep you from seeing it. Or from finding out it never existed.

Now, your very own personal analog of this particular spectral piece of paper will cost you fifteen bucks or so at the dreary Birth Records Window of your dreary local Town Hall. Or ten, if you were born in Hawaii.[6] So why has it cost its owner the sum of $2,000,000 and counting? There can be only one of only three reasons, each stranger than the others. Reason X: there just is no LFBC, and it never existed, which makes it a pricey chimera indeed. None-of-a-kind: protected by the doubt cast upon its non-existence, by the big money paid to hide what never was! A subterfuge worthy of Poirot. Reason Y: it's real, it may be from Hawaii or from Mombasa or from somewhere else, but it's so ineluctably, fatally damning -- you know: he's Muslim; he's Kenyan; Soetoro's adoption made him Indonesian -- that, to keep it buried, no price is too high. Both of these require that he tough it out to the end.

Then there's a third discernible scenario for the $2M expenditure. Gambit Z: chess game, the Ruy Lopez Mortimer trap. White moves; Black feigns vulnerability, weakness of position. White gets greedy; White gets heedless; White gets overconfident; White moves in to seize and capture. Black pins, checks, takes, gains advantage. The birth certificate proves genuine, verifiable, and unassailable. Hawaii-born, "like we said all along." And it is produced with such nonchalance and exquisite timing -- just at the climactic pinnacle of the 2012 campaign -- so as to explode and deflate the Republicans' by then birth-certificate-frenzied hootenanny like it's the Hindenburg. Two million dollars is one heck of an insurance premium. But what a payout!

Here's the problem with giving credence to this last scenario. If in fact Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., the President's putative father, was -- as the narrative has always run -- a Kenyan Brit, then how could any such bona fide document not reveal that Jr. inherited both dual citizenship and a dual loyalty? Each of these alone is antithetical to natural-bornness, no matter how that elusive quality may someday be finally defined and codified, and each is certainly incompatible with eligibility. And if BHO Sr. wasn't a Kenyan Brit -- or if he wasn't the father at all -- then the President's entire already tenuous provenance is a monstrously false construct, and he a liar of unprecedented compass, who ran and was elected by deceiving and traducing the nation and the world. Not to praise them overmuch, but even his tingling minions might well then awaken -- bloodshot, bleary-eyed, sullen, only grudgingly conscious, but finally sober -- to the truth. That long-delayed dawn, alongside a hefty bipartisan bill of impeachment, would finally be his political downfall.

The Bard, as usual, prefigures the machinations of such malign folly as all this business:

That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies.
(Macbeth, Act I, Scene iv)

Well, so far, so good for you, Mr. President. Nice jump shot direct from the Illinois Department-of-O'erleaping Squad. But the second half of the game is coming, and it doesn't look like a cakewalk. (Note to Donald Trump and James David Manning[7]: keep up the pressure.) And no matter how it plays out, that $2M is a nice bit of irony: the alleged first black president, blackmailing himself.

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[1] Source: a highly-placed US politician and officeholder.

[2] U.S. Department of the Treasury -- Bureau of Engraving & Printing.

[3] World Net Daily in 2009, when the total was already up to $1.4 million

[4] A US coin from the late 1790's, valued at $2 million.

[5] Swedish postage stamp, said to be the world's most expensive, valued at approximately $2.3 million.

[6] State of Hawaii birth certificate request form.

[7] "A Continuing Criminal Enterprise Under Obama:" fiery, incisive Harlem preacher who has relentlessly challenged Obama's natal bona fides.

Richard Kantro may be contacted at rk4at@hotmail.com.