The Magic Citizen

Usually an improbable rumor about a national leader, unless it's substantiated quickly,  makes the rounds and then fades away as it becomes apparent that it has no legs. Some are like bad pennies though, and they just keep popping up over and over. Too bad we can’t just do a “Snopes” check and be done with them. But when some "web news" sites claim a Federal Judge has set a trial date for a law suit concerning such a story, it starts to grow toes, if not legs.

The question about President Barak Obama’s citizenship is just such a story. Even though it never occurred to me that it might be true, and it still doesn’t, I find the evolving interest in it to be more intriguing all the time. It’s not the question of whether or not Obama was born in the USA, and is therefore qualified to be its President under the ever more ignored and increasingly irrelevant U S Constitution, but instead, the question of why the one person who can make it disappear forever into the diaper pail of crazy conspiracy theories will not do so, that facinates me. That one person is of course, the Magician in Chief himself, whose power to make things disappear is becoming legendary.

President Mandrake’s opening act was turning two U S car companies, a bevy of the countries largest banks, and a gigantic insurance company into federal subsidiaries. Changing rabbits into birds ain’t got nothin’ on that one.

He then waved his magic wand and created several trillion dollars of “Monopoly” money out of thin air. From a distance it even looked like the real thing. All this while the audience gave standing ovations. Even Penn and Teller haven’t been able to top that.

And now, just a few weeks ago, when confronted with the inconvenient realization that the suddenly observant populace discovered that illegal aliens would be allowed to belly up to the government buffet table of universal health insurance coverage, he made Houdini proud by making sixteen million people disappear in just a few quick speeches.

Right before our eyes, he turned the somewhat dubious 46 million uninsured victims of the greedy, capitalistic health insurance companies into only 30 million by pretending that the previously included sneak-ins and legal aliens never existed by dropping the number without explanation.
Viola!    Simply by changing the number he cites of the already magical, roundly accepted tally of the unfortunate in his speeches, he removed 16 million from the rolls of the wretched.  If he can remove another 35% after each such performance, he should have the “crisis” completely evaporated in no time and can get on to his next trick.

It’s listed on your program as “making any chance of future prosperity or job growth vanish into the smoke and mirrors of the Cap and Tax legislation.” In the same moment the first part is completed, hundreds of millions of dollars will materialize in the accounts of Goldman Sachs and other slick dealers who are already prepared to implement the scheme in the grand tradition of the "Chicago Way".  Mayor Daley’s pet Chicago Climate Exchange is conveniently ready for the transition from “voluntary” to mandatory trading.

But back to the citizenship fiasco. The question remains, why wouldn’t the President just show his birth certificate to the people who elected him and be forever done with it? All the rest of us have to do so when enrolling in school or getting a passport or any of a plethora of other official government functions. Surely it’s just as important to prove you meet the requirements to be President as it is prove you can travel legally in other countries.

It was only after conferring with my good friend Homer in an e-mail exchange on the subject, that I decided to write about his curious refusal to co-operate on such a mundane matter.

In my electronic correspondence with my fellow wonderer, I speculated on some scenarios which could explain it. I thought perhaps there was some other information on the certificate which could be embarrassing, like perhaps a different fathers name? Or no fathers name at all? But I’m guessing that’s not it. Most politicians today get forgiven for almost anything they do, much less what their parents did, and the today’s most adored man knows he would get a pass.

Following that, I opined that maybe he was being advised by his campaign team, (which is now governing in permanent campaign mode) to drag this out as long as possible while trying (with the help of their media toadies) to link the whole episode to middle of the road conservatives and Republicans instead of the fringe groups where it has found it’s only traction. In this way, when they deem the time to be right, they can show the proof and portray all his opponents as conspiracy kooks. After all, if you are that close to the edge, how can any credence be lent to your opposition to our “progressive” solutions?

But I have finally settled on a combination of the last one and one other. That being the illusionists’ tactic of never stopping a distraction while it can be of any use at diverting attention away from the sleeve which has the card inside it. So for now, I’m sticking with that conclusion because it’s the best one I could make up on short notice.

Seemingly, only a blind showman would ever select Nancy Pelosi as “the pretty assistant from the audience“, nevertheless, she is busy readying his biggest trick thus far, and that ace up his sleeve is the ever morphing health-care nationalization legislation which will set them up for the grand finale.

The President’s citizenship diversion is only one small part of the show, and we get distracted at our own peril. I don't believe the President is ineligible to hold our highest executive office, but if we get sideways on our attention, the final act in this magic show may make our rights disappear in a puff of socialist smoke.