In her recent column Trump the Disrupter, Maureen Dowd wrote, “…Trump can go badly astray, as he did with the president’s birth certificate.”

Astray? Here’s what Trump said about Obama’s birth certificate when asked in a recent interview by Anderson Cooper on CNN:

Cooper asked: “Do you accept that President Obama was born in the United States?”

“I really don’t know,” Trump responded. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t release his records; but, honestly, I don’t want to get into it.”

Before shifting to a different topic…Trump rebutted with a few facts on the subject.

“Do you know that Hillary Clinton was a birther? She wanted those records and fought like hell,” he said. “People forgot…”

“I really don’t know.”

Given what we do know and the documents released, this seems to be the most honest and reasonable answer anyone can say about the documents he has released to prove he is a natural born citizen.

At least Trump did not prevaricate about the issue. He said he really didn’t know. That’s far different from Bill O’Reilly, who actually claimed to have seen the Obama Birth document when it was impossible to do so.

We have no evidence Bill O'Reilly has seen Obama’s original birth document. At the time of the birth certificate controversy, the question was asked, “What exactly did The Factor do to investigate the birth certificate?” No clear answer was given.

Later, O'Reilly claimed in a segment with Ann Coulter. “As we mentioned, The Factor debunked the whole Birth Certificate deal more than a year ago. It was easy. The state of Hawaii sent us a copy of the document.  End of story.’”

Many have to wonder, now, as Andrea Shea King wondered, how Bill O'Reilly can make the claim that, “‘The Factor’ investigated...we found that President Obama was born in Hawaii. We sent (for) the documents….”’

The State of Hawaii maintains Obama’s records are still off limits. “The following court decision upheld the statute which restricts access to vital records: Justice v. Fuddy–ICA–April 7, 2011 Concurring opinion by J. Leonard.– denial of request to see President Obama’s birth certificate.

Eventually, the controversy about the birth documents, which grew to involve Lou Dobbs, subsided and it was all chalked up to racism.

After that, a new issue arose and that issue was about the allegedly forged document released by the White House to the press.

It is this allegedly forged document that involved Donald Trump. “Upon the release of Obama's birth certificate, Trump took credit for the disclosure. At the time, he was openly mulling a campaign for president in the next election cycle.”

“After nearly one month of remaining mum on the issue, Trump reportedly told WND that a computer expert assessed the document released by the White House and concluded that it was computer-generated and forged.” – Huffington Post

Instead of asking Trump about Obama’s natural born citizen status, maybe we ought to ask Maureen Dowd and Anderson Cooper to lay out their arguments about Obama’s birth and documents. Maybe Dowd and Cooper ought to ask Hillary about her birther claims. They are the ones who seem to have gone badly astray.

My bet is they will condescend and refuse to answer. They are all above the truth. Give Donald Trump credit. He does not act on faith. He’s an agnostic when it comes to Obama.

You can bet on it. If Trump pushes the birther argument into Hillary’s lap, the media will drop it like a greasy toupee. Right now, everyone in DC is biding time so that Obama can make it across the finish line.

“I really don’t know,” is a good answer. It’s an American answer. It’s the answer any one who has looked into the birther argument can claim.

Donald Trump is here to remind us it’s been almost 8 years now, and we are still feeling our way in a fog when it comes to Obama. If it were up to Dowd and Cooper we’d still be feeling our way in the dark.