What’s the deal with “birthers”?

Suddenly they’re back in the news. Barack Obama played Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” at the Gridiron Club a few weekends ago. He cracked a joke at the White House’s St. Patrick’s Day lunch.

Now Donald Trump, in what I perceive to be an attempt at splitting the Republican ticket, has come out with his own uncertainty about Obama’s lieu de naissance.

While I do admire the wit with which our commander in chief handles the issue, it should really be addressed once and for all.

The pejorative term “birther,” which conjures images of a 9/11 “truther,” is just that: derogatory. Thanks, mainstream media.

In the end, both the birthers and the truthers are wasting their time.

History has passed them by. Obama was elected president. The Iraq War and the War on Terror are ongoing. Whatever validity their arguments once had, if any at all, are lost.

Even so, in these hyper-partisan times, it’s easy to dismiss someone’s point of view just because they inspire in you the same feeling the words “Sarah” and “Palin” do for our liberal friends when they’re juxtaposed. Thanks again mainstream media.

For the so-called birthers, there are two unavoidable obstacles. Firstly, the certification of birth provided by Obama’s 2008 campaign is of the type generally accepted by the State Department when applying for a passport. If you need to prove you’re a U.S. citizen, this little sucker will get you through the door. So in my mind, if it’s good enough for the State Department, it’s good enough for me.

Secondly, and more toxic to the birthers’ cause, is that on Aug. 31, 1961, a time-traveling intern from Obama’s campaign put a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser. Only it wasn’t a time-traveling intern. And there’s really no sensible conclusion that I can reach as to why someone who knew the Obamas would put a fraudulent one in the paper.

So, essentially, a birther would be working against both history and the State Department. I certainly don’t envy their position.

The natural question here is: Why? Why are there still people who believe this, given mountainous evidence to the contrary?

It all seems to hinge on one little sentence in the U.S. Constitution — Article II, Section I, specifically — that states that no one “except a natural-born Citizen” is eligible for the job.

So what could an “unnaturally born” citizen of the United States possibly be?

Theodore Olson, former solicitor general, points out that a natural-born citizen is born to two American parents on American soil.

Let’s not forget the rumors in 2008 that John McCain was ineligible for the office given his Aug. 29, 1936, birth on a naval base in the Panama Canal Zone, which was at the time controlled by the United States.

So, by Olson’s definition, McCain is a natural-born citizen, and our current president is not.

No, I didn’t just come out as a birther.

I view the issue thusly: If the Supreme Court were to review the matter, it would be far more likely to specify that one need not be born to two American parents for a natural birth than it would be to depose a sitting president.

I assume this because it is not an unnatural occurrence in this country for an immigrant to have a child. As we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants, I fail to see how it is unreasonable that having a single American parent, as in Obama’s case, would invalidate one’s natural birth. Most optimal would be a court ruling to determine, once and for all, what are and are not eligible conditions for being a natural-born citizen.

All of that being said, one point remains: Questioning the official story is never a bad idea.

As Jefferson’s popular attribution goes, “A well-informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.” How better to be informed than to question? That’s the entire reasoning behind the Fourth Estate, the press.

A healthily skeptical electorate is democracy’s multivitamin. It is only when that skepticism blooms into conspiracy theories that the pill becomes a suppository.