Donald Trump and the Birth Certificate

By Henry Percy

Yes, that birth certificate. Donald Trump, the oft-married casino tycoon, is considering a run for the presidency, and he wants to see President Obama's birth certificate. The real one, the so-called long form, not just the certification of live birth, which is not the same thing. With his celebrity status, Donald Trump demanding to see the certificate will force the Obama handlers to tie themselves in knots, again, loudly and publicly, to say that it's none of our business.

I am so tired of otherwise conservative talk show hosts lambasting birthers as knuckle-draggers, idiots, neanderthals. I'm thinking particularly of Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt, Ivy League lawyers whom I otherwise admire. All of the birthers I know are at the right end of the IQ bell curve. The request is perfectly reasonable. Why do these subtle legal minds have difficulty reading Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution? "No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President." Could not be plainer to me. I think that's what the legal scholars are wont to call black-letter law. Why should that clause be passé, infra dig., just way too far outside the mainstream in these oh-so-postmodern times?

Imagine sailing through a barely yellow light and getting stopped by a man in blue.

"May I see your driver's license, sir?"

"Of course I have a driver's license."

"Sir, that's not what I asked. May I see it?"

"What, you don't think I have one?"

"Sir, I'm asking to see your driver's license."

"How dare you question my integrity! I told you I have one!"

"Sir, step out of the car."

And we can all guess what the judge would say when you argue that the officer should mind his own business. But run for the highest office in the land and it's bad form to enquire if the candidate can pass one of the two very low bars to the presidency. Age and natural-born citizenship are low bars. I happen to think that a presidential candidate should pass a background check for a security clearance, because it's s an open question whether Bill Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama would pass such a check, but the Constitution does not require that. Just age and birth. Easily determined.

So to Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved and my other friends on the right, please, stop the gratuitous insults to those of us who wish to see a real, honest-to-goodness birth certificate for the 44th president of these United States. It's not that hard to produce such a document. And to Mr. Trump -- yay!

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a technical writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com.