Next Up, The College Transcripts, Please!

By now this morning, we all know that the White House released the long-form version of President Barack Obama's birth certificate. 

And this morning as well, this from Redstate.  My emphasis.

So he’ll release it and make it a non-issue for most and, for those who continue to believe there is something off, he’ll go back to portraying them as crazy, racists.

Of course, once the birth certificate issue is dispatched, will he release his college transcripts? That’s the issue for me.

When the birth certificate is reviewed and we can see what most of us have always known — that he was born in Hawaii — we can move on. For some, moving on will be to wonder what religion the man is.

He can’t win on this. Not that I care.

So, a tacit nod to the fact that (shockingly), our President is an American citizen!  Not that all birthers will be convinced of this, of course.  Even when folks with impeccable Republican credentials admit "what most of us have always known."

Two themes will continue to dominate the birther discourse: 

1)  Even if Barack Obama is American, he remains un-American.  A black-man-raised-in Hawaii-with-a-father-born-into-Islam-in-Africa-and-a-stepfather-from-Indonesia-and-having-lived-abroad-as-a-child-and certainly-not-Christian-enough.  Different.  Strange.  Not like you and me, even if he isn't technically a "foreigner."

2)   No possible way the black-man-raised-in Hawaii-with-a-father-born-into-Islam-who-was-from-Africa-and-a-stepfather-from-Indonesia-and-having-lived-abroad-as-a-child-and certainly-not-Christian-enough is anywhere near good enough to be President of the United States.  If we can no longer question his citizenship because of all of who he is, we can certainly ponder his qualifications for all the same reasons.  

We see evidence of both discourses in today's Redstate's post.  Continuing to question President Obama's faith  -- or outright claim he is a Muslim -- is a subtle way of saying he is un-American.  Now, questioning his Ivy League credentials.  Because after all, there is no possible way someone with this President's profile could have not one, but two Ivy League degrees. No. Can. Do.

I was the first of my cousins to be born in this country after my parents came here following the Cuban Revolution.  The joke when I was a child was that I was the first in my family entitled to run for President.  Today, this first generation, Cuban-American (with an Ivy League degree, by the way) is very, very perturbed.