It was surreal to be watching cable news and hear that President Obama would be speaking to the nation in ten minutes regarding his birth certificate, and then immediately after that watch Donald Trump get out of his Helicopter in Portsmouth NH and claim credit for being the one who finally got the President to release his birth certificate.
Trump Takes Credit For Obama Releasing A Birth Certificate
"I'm taking great credit and you have to ask the president, 'why didn't he do this a long time ago? Why didn't he do it a long time ago?' When Hillary Clinton was asking, when everybody was asking, why didn't he do it? It's shocking. It's shocking," Donald Trump said at a press conference this morning on President Obama's birth certificate.I was literally laughing out loud, shaking my head, clapping slowly and thinking "Beautiful, just Beautiful".
Having grown up in New Jersey, and having gone to college in New York City I have been exposed to the Donald a little longer than the rest of the nation. I respect and like Mr Trump, but when I heard he was running for president I thought, "here we go again". Yes, I was dismissive. But my head is now turned, and I am listening closely.
Here is what others are thinking and saying.
Right, Wing-Nut!: Birthers 1, Obama 0
Even with an offical long-form birth certificate, Obama has lost this round badly to the "birthers". If they're the crazy nincompoops that the media makes them out to be, and yet are able to bend the president to their will, well...what does that say about his mental capabilities,exactly?Keith Olbermann: Maguffins 1 Obama 0
It is another reflection of our well-meaning but sometimes utterly tone-deaf President that he really dug up the long-form birth certificate – even after the previous one had been released,Going on to say that of course this is all due to racism.
And then from the Wall Street Journal.
Born in the U.S.A.
As for Mr. Obama, he easily could have allowed the birther bubble to grow, further tarnishing the mainly right-leaning crowd that either fell for it or, as with Sarah Palin, was willing to give it too much credence. He then could have pricked that bubble by releasing the certificate at a moment of maximum political convenience to his re-election campaign. That the President didn't do so is an act of leadership that deserves a note of appreciation.Pretty charitable of the WSJ. But, sorry, I can't agree. Obama did this to himself. He could have put this to bed a long long time ago by releasing the very same birth certificate he released yesterday, but the fact of the matter is that he did not. The super genius - smarter than all of us president held it back for all of the cynical political evil genius motives that the WSJ suggests, and insiders have confirmed. And sorry, it was not an act of leadership that lead him to release the birth certificate, it was Donald J Trump who was beating the president like a baby seal over this issue, and the president wanted it to stop. I think that is a form of Karma when you do something for evil selfish purposes and it comes back to bite you. Mr Obama really has no one to blame but himself.
Not ever being a "birther" myself I do have to admit to taking immense amusement and schadenfreude over the whole ordeal. After all, it was the democratic party that first went after John McCain as being not qualified to serve as president because he was born in Panama. More Karma, don't you think?
And in the Irony department? This whole movement was born of a Clintonista dirty trick. Her team originally made the assertion. The "birthers" are not just GOP'ers as the main stream media would have you believe. There are a lot of female Hillary supporters out there who hate the president for what he did to their Hillary.
Anyways, I guess in the big picture, it is good when the circus leaves town, but somehow you still miss it a little.
