Opinion Forum

Enter the Germophobic Birther Candidate

April 16th, 2011

Looks like Donald Trump’s birther-fueled possible candidacy for president has diverted the media from their obsession with Charlie Sheen. It must be a real career-builder these days for a reporter to get assigned to the fruitcake beat….

Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist, has weighed in on the nascent Trump candidacy, adding an important fact that I confess I’d never heard. Turns out that in addition to being a birther conspiracy theorist, the Donald is also a germophobe who refuses to shake hands with anyone. And that means anyone. Imagine that — a politician who won’t shake hands. Voters are accustomed to politicians treating them like ignorant and unwashed peasants, so maybe they wouldn’t care if he didn’t shake hands. But what will he do in meetings with foreign leaders, G20 confabulations, UN boondoggles on global warming, Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies, etc? I suppose he could follow President Obama’s preference for bowing down to foreign heads of state; no nasty touching of hands involved.

But not to worry. He says that in the event he decides to run, he will shake hands with everyone — even teachers, whose hands he believes are especially dirty. Whew! That’s a relief! Now we have nothing to worry about in the event Trump becomes president.

Pithy observations from Richard Cohen on the possibility of a germophobic birther president:

If Trump gets to the White House, we will have the Purel Presidency. The chief executive will stand around with his hands in his pockets, and the Secret Service will be armed both with Uzis and bottles of hand sanitizers. I can assure my readers, however, that this will not come to pass. The little tic that I have noted, the one that leads to the larger character flaw, shows that Trump is a conspiracy nut, germs of course being the ultimate conspirators — unseen yet lethal, as in the manner of Muslim terrorists, bed bugs in hotel rooms and death panels, tucked into Obamacare legislation and written in invisible ink. Now we have the matter of Barack Obama not being a natural-born citizen of the United States.

Obama claims to have been born in Hawaii. The slim evidence for that is only the account of his family, the recollections and snapshots of numerous friends, newspaper accounts about the arrival of Barack Hussein Obama (possibly placed by Angela Lansbury, creating “The Hawaiian Candidate”) and a birth certificate on file with the state authorities. This, though, is offset by a fraudulently edited taped interview with his then-86-year-old Kenyan grandmother. As edited, it suggests that Obama was born in Kenya and thus would be constitutionally ineligible to be president. The entire interview, though, says no such thing. When the interviewer asks the grandmother if she is saying that Obama was born in Kenya, she repeatedly says “Hawaii.” I am checking to see if Hawaii is the Swahili word for Kenya. …

I can think or nothing worse than a president who is a not a natural-born citizen — unless it is a president who will not shake hands. Can you imagine our commander in chief waiting at the portico of the White House for the arrival of some foreign dignitary — say, the emperor of Japan or, heaven forefends, Kate Middleton? He or she extends a hand. He offers a weak smile. The visitor tries again and he shoves his hand in his pocket. Middleton bursts into tears. The emperor screams something from a John Wayne movie and … I cannot bring myself to write what comes to mind.

Just when you think American politics can’t get any weirder or more dysfunctional, along comes a germophobic birther to save the day. Ah well, I guess we could do worse than having for president some conspiracy theorist terrified of germs, his seventeenth young blond wife with a foreign accent on his arm, trying to lease out the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial to Japanese businesses, building high-rise condos on all that empty real estate along the National Mall, and running around the White House screaming “You’re fired!” Oh, and all the while sporting the world’s worst comb-over.

On the other hand, if the Donald runs and the Republicans are stupid enough to nominate him (and they are, actually), we’ll have to choose between him and … Barack Obama. Geez. Where is Chauncey Gardner when we really need him?

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: birther, candidate, germophobe, President, satire, Trump
Categories: Humor, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

One Response to “Enter the Germophobic Birther Candidate”

Dan Miller | April 16th, 2011 at 9:21 pm

Just because Trump is germophobic is no reason to disparage him; so was Howard Hughes and look what he accomplished. Pardon me while I go and wash my hands; someone else may have touched the keyboard or something close to it.

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That took some time but now I’m back. Despite the above, Trump is a politically dangerous jerk. His birther stuff is silly, not because there are no questions about President Obama’s constitutional qualifications as President but because thus far Trump has not revealed anything of substance about where, when, how or why President Obama was born. He nevertheless continues to pump the matter for ~~all~~ more than it’s worth with the non-information he has managed to come up with. So much fun has been made of Birtherism that unless Trump comes up with some real and indisputable facts showing that President Obama is not constitutionally qualified, he will continue to be a distraction from other no less important issues on which President Obama could likely be voted out of office.

I don’t know where President Obama was born, although I assume that he was born somewhere, somehow and sometime to someone. I have rejected the notion that he may have been hatched from an egg simply because that is implausible. Lots of folks believe that he was born in the United States, that he was born outside the United States or that he is otherwise constitutionally unqualified. Belief is not the same as knowledge and President Obama has thus far declined to provide convincing evidence either way. I suggest that he has declined to do so for either of two reasons: (1) the evidence would prove that he is not qualified or (2) he does not want to make his passports, school scholarship information and long form birth certificate available because, even though they would prove him Constitutionally qualified, he profits politically from the decoy like diversion of increasing numbers of birthers from other, more significant, issues.

If Trump is the best the Republicans have to offer, I shall support Grumpy the Clown for President and Jimmy Buffett for Vice President. Despite their minor drawbacks, they may well be a winning ticket for either or both parties. Further information on this will (I have been confidently advised) appear at Pajamas Media next week. Until then, here and here are great videos demonstrating their appeal. Questions about whether Grumpy could actually read only enhanced his appeal during last year’s elections for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies (Congress)– he received 1.3 million votes, nearly the number for any other candidate — and his major campaign promises were dynamite: “It can’t get any worse” and “What does a federal deputy do? Truly, I don’t know. But vote for me and you’ll find out.” All of former Speaker Pelosi’s supporters will vote for him automatically. The ~~Trumpers~~ Birthers will forget all about their issue and vote for him as well. As to Mr. Buffett, all of our many fruitcakes will certainly vote for him as Vice President.