Trump and the Birth Certificate

I admire Donald Trump's success in real estate and agree with some of his frustrations concerning our present economic situation. I find some of his criticisms of the current administration to be right on target, but I do not believe that Republicans should continue to attack President Obama on the birth certificate issue. It is not that I am satisfied that the President was born in the United States as required by the constitution.  All things being equal, I would like to see that issue cleared up.   I admit that I share Mr. Trump's curiosity as to why the President has seen fit to spend millions of dollars to thwart that clarification.

My opposition to making this such a political issue, at this point in time, is that it is helpful to Mr. Obama's reelection campaign. I presume that from here on out, we will ask this question of all of our presidential candidates as a matter of course, and that is as it should be. By raising it now, we are energizing the President's base support and that is not an intelligent thing for conservatives to do. Elections are, unfortunately, partly a test of voter intensity on left and right. Whoopi Goldberg's point that we have never asked white men to show their birth certificate is not relevant in absolute terms, but it is extremely relevant in gut political terms. Why is it in the conservative interest to stimulate the political left?

I have long ago gotten over the fact that the American public did not ask enough questions of this man before we elected him. Among other things I am flabbergasted that we elected an individual to office that could not have gotten a job in the United States government that required a security clearance. His questionable associations with radical thinkers and activists would have raised too many questions. The birth certificate issue comes far down the list of my complaints about the decision to select him as our president, but the fact is that we elected him. We will not defeat him at the polls by poking a stick in the eye of his base supporters - even if it is deserved.

If, repeat if, we elect a better person to lead this country it will be because we make the case on the political issues that divide us. The key thing to keep in mind is that the middle of America is where that decision will be made. The so-called independent voter aligned with "weak" Democrats and Republicans will decide who our next president will be. Libya will be part of that debate, as will a number of other things, but President Clinton's oft-repeated political slogan highlights the principal issue - "its the economy stupid." Although we are currently focused on radiation in Japan and air strikes in North Africa, the most important thing looming on the near horizon is the dogfight over the budget.

Before I leave the subject of Mr. Trump's reported consideration of running for the office of president, let me make a heart-felt plea. Please do not. Like a similar request that I make of Mrs Palin and Mrs. Bachman, Mr. Trump is too divisive to be able to govern us effectively. I continue to think that we should draft Chris Christy. He is certainly smart enough to give Mr. Obama a run for his money in any debate, and more importantly he is right on the principal problems facing this country at the present time.