Note to birthers: let it go

Do I care that George W. Bush had a cyst removed from his chest at age 14, in 1962? Do I care that four years later he was issued two speeding tickets and fined $20? Do I care that he got a 71 in economics at Yale?

No.

None of this really matters, does it? But the editors at WorldNetDaily, a conservative online publication, seem to believe it does. Why else would they publish such factoids about W in an August 2009 article titled, “Get this: Media actually probed other candidates,” by Chelsea Schilling?

The gist of the article was this: Past presidents and presidential candidates have divulged intimate personal information about themselves, so why shouldn’t President Obama release his original birth certificate?

Interestingly, the WND article made clear that, besides Obama, the only other presidential candidate in recent memory who was asked to produce a birth certificate was Sen. John McCain. The Republican senator was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone, so some speculated that he was not a “natural-born” citizen, a constitutional requirement to be president.

The WND article failed to mention that McCain never released his original birth certificate to the public. He reportedly showed it to a Washington Post reporter for a May 2008 article, “McCain’s birth abroad stirs legal debate,” but that was it. Shortly before the Post published the piece, the Senate declared McCain a natural-born citizen in a nonbinding resolution, and the issue of his citizenship died in the media.

McCain’s birth certificate later came out through a lawsuit, Hollander v. McCain, which was dismissed in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire in July 2008.

Ever since the presidential election, WND had called on Obama to reveal his original birth certificate and published a host of conspiracy theories claiming that he was born not in Hawaii, which was clearly stated in the short-form Certificate of Live Birth that he released publicly, but rather in Kenya, his father’s homeland, or in Indonesia, where he lived for five years as a child. No doubt, WND helped fan the flames of the so-called Birther movement.

Obama put the conspiracy theories to rest last week when he released a copy of his long-form birth certificate, which stated once and for all that he was born in Honolulu.

Donald Trump, who says he’s weighing a run for the White House, had blustered and stomped for weeks until Obama released the document. Then Trump claimed victory.

For what? Obama was a natural-born citizen before Trump arrived on the scene. He will remain a natural-born citizen. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

Throughout Trump’s weeks-long tirade, he appeared bellicose and brutish, and when juxtaposed against the calm, well-spoken, sane-sounding Obama, he looked like a spoiled oaf.

After Obama released his long-form certificate, Trump asked for his academic records, wondering how he got accepted to Columbia University and Harvard Law School. The implication, as veteran CBS reporter Bob Schieffer rightly pointed out, was that Obama was accepted to these two prestigious schools because he’s black. Trump’s insinuation, to me, was racist.

Enough is enough. All of this talk about the academic and medical records of our presidents and presidential candidates is nonsense, a sideshow in our national debate. Al Gore got a D- in natural sciences. So what?

What matters is simple: Is the president good for the country? Is he leading us in the right direction?

Bush led us in the wrong direction. Under Bush we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq with no exit strategy. At the same time, the Bush administration racked up $4 trillion in debt –– the greatest amount of any president in history, according to CBS News. Toward the end of his presidency, the nation spiraled downward into the worst recession it had experienced since the Great Depression.

With unemployment recently falling 2 percentage points and consumer spending beginning to show signs of recovery, we’re only now crawling our way back to normalcy. Under Obama, the country is slowly righting itself.

Stagnant industries –– including the automotive industry –– are making a steady comeback. As a consequence, the Dow is soaring. It’s climbed more than 6,000 points during Obama’s presidency. Millions of Americans who were previously uninsured now have access to affordable health care. With Obama extending an olive branch to nations once scorned by Bush, the U.S. is repairing its badly damaged international image. And the president is in talks with the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives on the best way to reduce the national deficit and debt. They haven’t accomplished much thus far, but at least they’re talking.

My suggestion to Trump? Get off your soapbox and get down to building your vaunted Trump on the Ocean catering hall at Jones Beach. Four years have passed since it was first proposed, and your opulent eatery is nothing more than a weed-covered — and some say rat-infested — open pit.

Scott Brinton is senior editor of the Bellmore and Merrick Heralds and an adjunct professor at the Hofstra University Graduate Journalism Program. Comment below or write SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203. Brinton’s profile and posts can be found at facebook.com/scottabrinton.