Filibuster CartoonsTitle: Obama's certificates of achievement (click to view)
Date: May 2, 2011
I have to admit that I was one of those people who didn't think President Obama would benefit much politically when he released his "long-form" birth certificate on Wednesday. To me, it just seemed to reinforce the birther narrative that the man was secretive, duplicitous, and suspicious. After all, Obama had previously declared the birth certificate matter closed in 2008, when he released a different hospital form. To suddenly spin around and say "no, actually, that one wasn't good enough, here's something much better," is to retroactively cast himself as someone who was, in, fact, conspiring to conceal evidence from the public — petty and unnecessary though that evidence may have been.
I also thought the whole spectacle really strengthened the rising brand of Mr. Trump, who I believe was perfectly justified in posing with self-righteous victory after the document was released. Trump was probably never a "serious" birther, at least in the sense of seriously fantasizing that the President was born in Kenya as part of some wide-ranging anti-American conspiracy, 50 years in the making. To him, the "show us the birth certificate" line seemed more 0f an opportunist, populist weapon that could be used to bash Obama's credibility in general — which I think is really the mainstream appeal of birtherism in some sectors of the American right. Even though the long-form certificate doesn't reveal anything interesting, Trump still benefits from the perceived cause-and-effect relationship that now seems to exist between his own words and the actions of the most powerful man in the world. And kowtowing to such an obvious windbag is not something that makes Mr. Obama look like a particularly strong leader.
But all that seems so quaint now, in the wake of the President's dramatic speech last night about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Making it clear that this was not something that just sort of "happened" in the fog of war, Obama
pointedly noted that targeting Osama had been "the top priority" of his War on Terror strategy, and that the eventual CIA plot that killed him had been personally approved in the Oval Office yesterday, mere hours before the deed was done.
Though Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had attempted to downplay Bin Laden's relevance in the final years of his term, the massive outpouring of joy and patriotism that heralded yesterday's news clearly demonstrated that the man still loomed large in the American psyche, and that his decade-long elusiveness had been a great source of shame and insecurity for the nation. Obama is still obviously a flawed politician, and will probably never be crass enough to openly take credit for "getting Bin Laden" directly, but just as the perception of Trump's power in forcing the birth certificate helped
him, so too will the perception of Obama as the president who could finally get the supposedly un-gettable guy strengthen his own image as a decisive leader.
In any case, it's an inspiring day for the United States, and the rest of us the world over who look to America as a country capable of bringing principled leadership and justice to the world. People often talk about the US as the "world's policeman," usually with a derogatory tone that implies a cruel busybody, yet watching Obama yesterday I was more reminded of the catchphrase we use to describe the effectiveness of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: "they always get their man."
CKA Uber 
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