The Administration

Whatever one might think about the Defense of Marriage Act (the legal invalidity of same-sex marriage), one should be critical of Attorney General Eric Holder's departmental policy to defend it, indeed propound it, in deportation cases while declaring that it is unconstitutional.

Immigration law allows an individual to petition for residency of his or her spouse so long as that spouse is not the same sex. Federal law does not recognize same-sex marriages. The attorney general stated in February that the administration deemed the act unconstitutional and determined as a matter of policy that the Justice Department would cease defending the act in courts. But it will continue to enforce the law? So he is not going to defend the law, but is going to invoke it?

Osama bin Laden is dead. By Election Day 2012 Moammar Gadhafi will be dead or deposed. The president of the United States, who I have called as American as apple pie, is cheered by proud patriotic Americans saying: USA! USA! USA!

When the books about the making of the president in 2012 are written, they will discuss the great inflection point that is at hand today.

Barely days ago, even at the White House correspondents dinner at which Washington insiders honor themselves, serious people (present company excluded) gave serious attention to the birthers, the birther issue and their idiot voice on the television "news,” who I have called the class clown of the presidential campaign: Donald Trump.

The United States still has questions to answer on the death of Osama bin Laden, as it no longer controls the shifting narrative. A counter-narrative has emerged from witnesses at the scene, in particular from the terrorist’s 12-year-old daughter, who has said that her father was captured alive at the house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, before being shot.

When Obama took office, it was with a pledge to restore the reputation of the United States in the world, after the thuggish “You’re either with us, or with the terrorists” worldview of George W. Bush. That meant restoring respect for international law.

In the hours following President Obama’s stunning and exhilarating announcement that U.S. Special Forces had raided a compound in Pakistan and found and killed Osama bin Laden, congressional Republican leaders went out of their way to thank President George W. Bush for his role in the hunt for Public Enemy No. 1.

After two years of insisting that Bush’s responsibility for all things ended the day President Obama was sworn in, now they are pushing the meme that the retired president had a role in an operation that began more than a year after he departed the White House. This is their “none of the accountability, all the credit” messaging strategy.

President Obama was gracious toward President Bush and President Clinton in his comments about the killing of Osama bin Laden, and he was right to do so.

So much of our politics has become a useless Kabuki dance where everyone takes predictable, predetermined positions in a ritual that puts most normal Americans to sleep. Let me part from the Kabuki here.

President Bush made one major mistake. He became so fixated about the Iraq war that he took his eye off the bin Laden ball. This led to bin Laden's escape at Tora Bora and diverted resources from the killing of bin Laden toward the Iraq war, over the private objection of many military commanders who advised otherwise.

In the war on terror, there is talk and there is action. From George W. Bush, we heard a lot of talk. From Barack Obama, we’ve seen a lot of action.

Sure, George Bush and Dick Cheney talked tough. But what did we get? More terrorist attacks on Americans. An illegal war in Iraq that only stirred up more hatred against the United States. A network of secret prisons and the presidentially approved use of torture — which, again, only resulted in more terrorism, not less.

President Obama, by contrast, never talked like a Texas sheriff. Never bragged about “bringing 'im back, dead or alive.” He just went out and did it.

The president brought forth his birth certificate not because he was more “adult” than Donald Trump but because the press took Trump’s cue and for two days straight followed up. Where is the long form? Why don’t you deliver? Why didn’t you deliver two years ago when you were required? It was an uh-oh moment. They, the administrators, sensed a sea change in the press. No longer would Nobel Prizes be given out after eight days in office. No longer would the most fawning and accommodating journalists get the Pulitzers. There is even the complaint by a Washington Post columnist that the “journalist prom” on Saturday night — hosted by Hollywood celebs and lobbyists and influence-seekers — got out of control.

My mother carried a copy of my birth certificate in her wallet from the time I was about 4 years old until I was almost 21, prompted by an incident with an emergency-room nurse who was shocked and confused to discover that the blond-haired, green-eyed, white woman in front of her was not a camp counselor, as she’d initially assumed, but the actual birth mother to the brown-haired, brown-eyed, brown-skinned child whose bleeding foot she’d just attended to. While my mom was a combination of shocked and confused herself, in that moment she focused on a larger issue: the safety of her child. She was afraid of what would or could happen some other time in some other emergency if she were challenged, and I was somehow denied or delayed needed care. For me, it was the first time I remember thinking how weird it was that anyone would think she wasn't my mom. At 4 years old, the conclusion is easily “Grown-ups are dumb.”

Good for Bob Schieffer. He said what all of us know to be true, but dared not say ourselves.

First, ignoring all the evidence that’s been out there for three years, Donald Trump resurrected the old lie about President Obama not being born in the United States — and demanded that the president release the “long form” of his birth certificate.

Then, when Obama surprised everybody by doing just that, what does Trump do next? Accept the evidence and apologize? No! Instead, he moves on to a new conspiracy theory, accusing Obama of being a “bad college student” and demanding that the president release the transcript of his grades.

The birther episode, culminating with the president of the United States releasing his birth certificate as Donald Trump claimed credit in a split-screen on television, was as shameful as it can get.
 
I hope.
 
The birthers themselves, who never had any evidence Obama was lying about the origin of his birth certificate, will thrive on a new green piece of paper and the conspiracy will live on and on. But fortunately the 2012 presidential field can now focus on the real issues. Trump's megaphone will no longer have the influence it would have. For that, likely presidential contenders like former Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.), former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.), former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) should thank Obama.