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Quit dithering! Just call it racism!

"The "N" word."  I despise the euphemism almost as much as I do the name itself.

We can't use it anymore.  Now we have to say, "He isn't one of us.  He was born in Kenya.  His middle name is Hussein."

Are any of your kids named "Hussein"?  See?  He isn't one of us!  He is a . . . well, he isn't one of us.

"He has no right to be President, you know.  He was born in Kenya."

That is what racism looks like when you can't use the "N" word.  You have to use nice-sounding names to call him a . . . to say that he does not belong in the White House.  You have a little tea party, and you invite all your paranoid and racist friends, and you call yourselves "Birthers", and you say that the S.O.B. in the White House, that Nazi, that Communist, that Socialist-Communist-Facist guy in the White House--The White House!--was born in Africa!  He has no right to be President!  He is Bl . . . , he isn't one of us.

So about two years ago, Barack Obama asked the State of Hawaii to send him a copy of his birth certificate. It is all over the internet.  It has been there for two years.  It is a birth certificate just like the one you and I have, except mine says I am a Caucasian, but I'm not.  I am of Norwegian descent:  an uncertain breed.

"Oh, no!", the Birthers howled.  We want to see the long birth certificate!" (whatever that is).  "Why doesn't that Bla . . . he release his real birth certificate?"

O.K.!  He--the guy in the White House--asked the authorities in Hawaii if they would please give him a copy of whatever they had.  They did.  Obama took it immediately to the public, not wanting anyone to say that he got it, and doctored it, and then he showed it to them.  By George, the second certificate says, also, that Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii, just like a real human being.

"Oh, Yeah?", the Birthers replied.  "Why did it take him two years to show it to us?"

Almost the entire leadership of the Republican Party said, "That is rather odd, isn't it?  That," they said, "is a legitimate question, isn't it, about his legitimacy?"  And as convincing proof that he isn't one of us, they asked just why that . . . the President was stirring up the pot, now, by showing his birth certificate, when the country was facing so many genuinely important issues, such as gay marriage, which might lead to dancing and other crotch-related issues?  "What do you suppose the President is covering up?"

Racism is a splendid disease, even if you can't use the "N" word!  It is nearly completely resistant to facts, because is does not depend on facts, and birth certificates, and academic records.  It infects politicians, and pundits, and almost half of the Republican Party, according to lots of polls.

It is a sickness.

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