President Obama yesterday removed all doubt about his eligibility to be president. Left unresolved was his stunning lack of enthusiasm for actually doing the job.
First the White House posted a copy of his so-called long-form birth certificate — and then the president went on television to announce: “I was born in Hawaii, Aug. 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital.”
So far, so good.
“Now, normally I would not comment on something like this, because . . . we do not have time for this kind of silliness,” he said.
“I’ve got better stuff to do.”
Whereupon he:
* Hopped Air Force One to Chicago.
* Taped the Oprah Winfrey show.
* Jumped back on the jet.
* And headlined three top-dollar political fund-raisers here in New York.
And yet he wonders why some people are so ready to believe that there is something fishy about where he was born.
Fact is, virtually everything Barack Obama has declared, promised or predicted since rising to national prominence three years ago has turned out to be specious, delusory or flat-out false.
Whether the subject is Gitmo, foreign wars, health care or fiscal responsibility, the president has long since surrendered the benefit of the doubt.
Small wonder, then, that Donald Trump and the rest of the gaggle that Obama yesterday termed “carnival barkers” have been gaining traction on the issue.
Ironically, the notion that Obama wasn’t born in the United States — and therefore isn’t eligible for the presidency — first popped up on pro-Hillary-Clinton Web sites during the 2008 Democratic primaries.
The notion is fever-swamp stuff, of course. But it plays right into the paranoid-fantasy strain in American politics. Remember, 51 percent of Democrats polled in 2006 believed or suspected that George W. Bush was complicit in the 9/11 attacks.
Yes, Trump and his fellow sideshow geeks — give Obama credit for getting that one right at least — have helped lay a libel to rest.
But now they need to let it go.
There are many, many reasons to question Barack Obama’s fitness to be president of the United States — but his birth circumstances have no place on the list.