And besides that, he is also Christian, was born overseas, racist, hates white people, hates black people, is part of a polygamous marriage and has superpowers.  He also knows where Jimmy Hoffa is buried, can raise people from the dead, is secretly a communist and is a sleeper agent for an alien invasion force.  And this being the Internet, all someone needs to do is say it and suddenly, a whole lot of people believe (or say they believe) that it’s true, it’s true.

Now, to all of us who have spent way too much time on the Internet, we are used to this sort of stuff.  Accusations fly faster here than orders do at your local IHOP on a Sunday morning.  The fact that maybe as many as 20% of Americans believe that he is Muslim and/or was born overseas, shouldn’t shock anyone, yet it always seems to shock the journalists who then in turn, ask the prez if he finds the numbers shocking as well.  IDK, maybe they are all working on their best Claude Rains impersonation just in case Hollywood ever decides to remake Casablanca? I’m not surprised that 20% of Americans answered the question that way since you could probably survey people and ask them if they though William Shatner and Roseanne Barr ever recorded an operatic duet and many would say yes.  Well, maybe not that many but you get the point.

The real point though is that nobody should have to go through what President Obama is going through now.  He doesn’t get a free pass because he is the prez but he also shouldn’t have to answer the same questions over and over again simply because he is the prez.  And when he says “I can’t spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered to my head”, that sardonic remark sets more Internetizens reading his lips, looking for tells and then bashing him some more.  Unfortunately, this is all par for what became a worn out, par 2010, American golf course that is full of water traps, sand traps, bunkers (oh gawd, I said bunkers, conspiracy alert) and other assorted gotchas.  When President Bush failed miserably at pronouncing nuclear, the left bashed him, so now that the US has a Democrat/Progressive/Liberal/Communist/Socialist/Muslim/Martian president in office, it’s the other side’s turn to take potshots at the man.  What’s amusing in all of this is that during the election campaign, Obama was bashed because he was supposedly a devoted follower/adherent/love slave of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright who nobody would accuse of being a Muslim. In the real world, you can’t have it both ways.  Oh, never mind, it’s the Internet, of course you can.

FYI, I’m shocked as anybody that I’m writing a piece in defense of President Obama since when political discussions occur, I’ve sometimes been accused of being just a little to the right of Attila the Hun (which I guess puts me to the left of Glen Beck?).  As far as I’m concerned, since he was born in the US and he has said that he is Christian, why keep asking him, why keep the rumor going and worse, attacking him on it?  And since someone asked (though I thought I made this clear), I don’t care what religion he is.  I think that when anybody has to answer the same damn question time after time after time it doesn’t mean that the rumor is true.  Sometimes there is smoke but it’s not fire that is causing it, it’s somebody trying to blow something up your …

Oh, Mr. President, while you’re answering questions, could you please use your superpowers to tell me where my car keys are, I’ve misplaced them again.

Mark

Update: Made a slight change to wording for clarity’s sake.