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Thus far, I have enjoyed the presence of Donald Trump on the political stage. The entertainment value is high. He started right in on the birther thing, and within weeks, sure enough, remember the art of the deal, out comes the long form of Obama's birth certificate. Huh. Wonder how that happened. My initial theory is that Obama responded as soon as he was challenged by someone who is right at his level.
Of course, now there is the racist charge associated with all this. I am frankly torn about that. One the one hand, some responsible parties might want to argue that frivolous charges of racism -- on the basis of jokes like the one above at the expense of Obama -- are debasing the currency of our public debate. But I would respond that the currency of public currency is debased already, and I don't think one more can hurt.
On the other hand, and this is the way I lean, charges of racism are so grotesquely inflated these days that perhaps we can all play along, trying to get the grotesque inflation to move into hyper-inflation, and to do this in a way that might hasten the crash. On the day that everything becomes racist, then nothing will be, and then we will all be free, and Dr. King's vision will finally be realized.
I mean, how is it racist to compare a foolish black guy to a foolish white guy? Ah, but the way things are calculated these days, it is.
Now if anybody thinks that the mere arrival of the long form birth certificate is going to shut up those who are conspiratorially minded, I would like to cite badbanana as an authoritative voice. "Nice try. If the U.S. government can blow up the World Trade Center, it can probably fake a 'long form' birth certificate."
The problem with those who try to penetrate the secrets of the world's conspiracies is that they don't ever look on the surface. They haven't read Poe's purloined letter. They are the kind of people who used to worry about what rock songs said when played backwards, when the real problem is what they said frontwards.
Why, the question is posed, with furrowed brow, did Obama withhold that certificate for years, spending millions to keep it out of public view, when it was always within his power to release it (as he just did). Hmmm? Well, obviously he was throwing chum into the water, trying to attract serious Republican presidential candidates. And all he got was Donald Trump! He was shark fishing and came back with a really big tuna. I think we should all hold our tummies and laugh for a while.
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