It is something of a rite of passage for American children, sometime in elementary school, to believe that they will one day be the President of the United States. A well-meaning teacher or parent will tell the earnest young innocent that they can be be anything they want to be, in America, even the President, if they study hard and eat their vegetables. Many, perhaps most, American children believe for a time that this dream can be true: they they will be president some day. This belief in the potential of all young Americans has become part of our country's "civic mythology."
It pains me that, while the other little children dream dreams of glory, one day I will have to tell my daughter that she will never be President.
You see, I received my daughter Isabel's Certificate of Live Birth in the mail today. Alas! It contains her name, her parents' names, the date, time and place of her birth (in our national capitol no less). But it has no entry for the attending physicians, no names and signatures of witnesses, and no information at all as to the citizenship of her parents. It looks official, but some nefarious person could have stolen blanks from the Department of Health, intercepted our mail, forged the information, all in furtherance of a conspiracy to have her elected President in thirty-five years. It has an official-looking seal but the conspirators could have easily faked or stolen that, or maybe the officials are in on it. There are birth announcements, yes, but this person who seems to be posing as my wife these days could also have faked those easily. Why, now I'm not even certain that there is any indelible proof that Isabel was ever born at all. So apparently my ficticious little girl will just have to be told, "no, Isabel, in fact you cannot ever be president."
(I'm pretty certain, however, that she's either a secret muslim, a communist, or both. I mean she's all about getting free milk for nothing these days.)
Update: Ah, now it all becomes clear. You see, on the Certificate there is a space for the birthplace of Isabel's father (me). Cuba! Obviously this ten week old girl is a Manchurian candidate of the worst stripe, a secret communist, a Castroista. And to think that Comrade Fidel's brainwashing was so effective that even I did not know it until the Birther Movement opened my eyes.