PrintApril 28, 2011
The Celebrity Apprentice Blinked
After holding out for two-and-a-half years, President Obama released his mysteriously secreted long form "certificate of live birth" after being pressured to do so by Donald Trump, billionaire business mogul and star of "The Apprentice" TV show.
Obama said we've been "distracted" long enough by "sideshows and carnival barkers."
The disclosure raises a few million dollar questions.
What's the big secret? Comparing the long form "certificate of live birth" to the short form "certification of f live birth," which has been posted online since the 2008 campaign, reveals the name of the birth hospital and the name of the "attendant."
This is what Obama spent substantial legal fees to keep hidden from public view, and then folded like a fearful apprentice after being bullied by the "boss" of a reality TV show?
If this was a ploy to raise campaign funds at the expense of "birthers," why cave now? Do Obama's plummeting poll numbers portend hearing his real boss say "You're Fired" in 2012?
Obama said it was time to put to rest the "silliness," as if he couldn't have ended it when Hillary Clinton's campaign raised the issue during the 2008 Democratic primary race. Obama said he's "puzzled at the way this has kept goin' on."
If this had him puzzled, it's no wonder he's clueless about economic recovery, cutting the deficit, creating jobs, and lowering gas prices.
Trump preempted Obama's remarks with some signature Trump audacity:
"I'm really really proud that I was able to finally force Obama to do this. I'm honored. I've accomplished something really really important. ... Why he didn't do it when the Clintons' asked for it. Why he didn't do it when everybody else was asking for it I don't know but I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully, getting rid of this issue. Now we have to look at it. We have to see is it real? Is it proper? What's on it? But I hope it checks out beautifully."
If Obama thinks he's put it "to rest," it gives new meaning to the audacity of hope.
Why does the supposedly smartest guy in the room think Americans will believe his reasons for releasing the mystery certificate now? Obama said:
"We've got some enormous challenges out there. There are a lot of folks out there who are still looking for work. Everybody is still suffering under high gas prices. We're going to have to make a series of very difficult decisions about how we invest in our future but also get a hold of our deficit and our debt -- how do we do that in a balanced way. ... But we're not going to be able to do it if we are distracted. ... We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers. ... We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We've got better stuff to do. I've got better stuff to do. We've got big problems to solve. And I'm confident we can solve them, but we're going to have to focus on them -- not on this."
Obama left immediately after his press conference to attend to his "bigger stuff," an interview with TV barker Oprah Winfrey where he spent more time on the "silliness," and then on to three big donor events in New York City during rush hour.
If Obama thought the disclosure would make Trump put a sock in it, good luck with that. Now Trump wants to see Obama's college and law school records:
"The word is, according to what I've read, that he was a terrible student when he went to Occidental," Trump said. "He then gets to Columbia; he then gets to Harvard. ... How do you get into Harvard if you're not a good student? Now, maybe that's right, or maybe it's wrong. But I don't know why he doesn't release his records."
Obama got a lesson in The Art of the Deal. But that's not the half of it.
The President of the United States blinked in a high stakes political game while the world's worst bad guys in Iran, North Korea, Libya, Afghanistan, and Syria were watching it play out.
If America's supremacy on the world stage were Obama's chief concern, that's the "side show" that should have mattered.
