Dumbing down Constitution for Obama's sake?

"He's clearly a citizen of the United States."

"We've seen his birth certificate."

"Without question, Barack Obama was born in the U.S."

"Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, and that settles it."

"It's nuttiness and counterproductive to question the president's eligibility for office."

These are some of the phrases we hear from Barack Obama's ardent defenders – people like Anderson Cooper and nearly all his colleagues in the news media.

{$evsignupform}

We hear the same drivel from the Republican establishment – people like Karl Rove, who insist the important principle of constitutional integrity should not be a "distraction" in efforts to defeat Obama at the polls.

But what happens when the national debate is systematically stifled by these gatekeepers is that we allow Barack Obama's clear lack of basic qualifications for office dumb down the rule of law, set a new lower standard of constitutional eligibility and redefine what the Constitution says and what the Supreme Court has ruled on its meaning?

In effect, we are allowing the Constitution to be amended by fiat – all because there is no political or legal mechanism in place to ensure candidates for president are constitutionally fit to serve.

Barack Obama is not a "natural born citizen," as required by Section 2, Article 1, of the Constitution. It has nothing to do with where he was born. It has to do with what Barack Obama has consistently represented to the American people about his birth – that his father was a citizen of Kenya. This is a disqualifier for office because that fact means he is not a "natural born citizen," the offspring of American citizens. It wouldn't matter if he were born in Kansas on the Fourth of July or on the dark side of the moon.

As we mercifully approach the end of the Obama regime, it's time to get serious about the bigger issue of presidential eligibility for the future of this country. If we allow the Obama eligibility standard to become the de facto law of the land, we lose one more important component of constitutional integrity – and we're on our way to being a nation adrift from any legal moorings.

When I first set out on the lonely course to make this a national issue, against all odds, I predicted that it would not go away. I predicted it would be a major issue in the 2012 presidential election. I also predicted it would not be settled in any court in America. In other words, I was three for three in my predictions.

Today, there remains a total political disconnect between the American people, who understand Obama is an illegitimate pretender to the highest office in the land, and the elite media and political establishment – both Republican and Democrat – which simply doesn't care what the Constitution requires.

But the Constitution and its clear intent and purpose are much bigger and more important to the future of America than is Barack Obama.

Anderson Cooper obviously doesn't care about the Constitution. Karl Rove obviously doesn't care about the Constitution. Nor do they care about the truth, about reality. They care only about political expediency. But, remember what that gave America – Bush and Obama, two administrations that undermined and subverted the Constitution and brought us economic misery.

Do we really want to keep listening to them?

Or, is it time to listen to the people who sacrificed their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for independence, the rule of law, self-governance and one sovereign nation under a Creator-God who endowed us with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Do we want to continue down a path on which we make up the most basic rules as we go along? Or do we want to return to the path set so ingeniously by our founders?

That's the choice we face in 2011 and 2012.

It's not a choice between Democrat and Republican. It's a choice between right and wrong.