Proof of Circumcision: The Cutting Edge of Politics

I’ve been thinking about running for public office.  I am not sure which office.  Dog catcher, Sheriff, Constable, Justice of the Peace.  Just any office where I can get lots of bribes . . . um, I mean contributions, from lobbyists and a promise of a really good pension down the road.

But I have one problem.  I can’t find my proof of circumcision.  Believe me, I have one.  I’ve just misplaced it.

I usually carry it with me at all times.  That’s because people are always asking me, “Bill, have you been circumcised?”  I always quickly respond, “Yes!”  But you know how it is with circumcisions.  People just won’t take your word for it.  They want proof.  So whenever people ask me if I have been circumcised, I just quickly whip it out.  My proof of circumcision, that is ...

But if I can’t put my hands on my proof of circumcision soon, I may not be able to run for public office.

The Arizona Legislature recently passed a law that any candidate for President of the United States cannot appear on the ballot in Arizona unless he or she presents documentation that they were born in the United States of America.  Such documentation could either be a “long form birth certificate” or “proof of circumcision.”  (If Sarah Palin plans on running, she better have a long form birth certificate.)

The Arizona law was inspired by presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump and other so-called “birthers” who believe that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and then secretly transported by his parents to Honolulu so he could run for President forty-seven years later.

Anyone who has ever seen the original Superman movie knows exactly how this could be done.  Superman’s father, Jor-el, played by Marlon Brando, took baby Superman off the planet Krypton shortly after his birth, and flew him in a spaceship to Kansas, where he got little Superman a fake birth certificate stating that his name was “Clark Kent.”  As it turned out, it wasn’t a Kansas birth certificate after all, but simply a “Certificate of Live Birth,” and no one has ever found Superman’s proof of circumcision.  Lois Lane says she knows the truth, but she’s not talking.

Well, similarly, Jor-el Obama snuck little baby Barack out of Kenya in 1961 into the Aloha state, probably because Hawaii had just recently become a state and so it was easy to get Polynesian bureaucrats to issue a fake birth certificate.

But as Donald Trump has thoughtfully pointed out, the document purporting to prove that President Obama was, in Bruce Springsteen’s words, born in the U.S.A., was not a long form birth certificate, or even a short form birth certificate, but a “Certificate of Live Birth,” which as we all know, you can get at Kinko’s or even Wal-Mart.  Besides, no one has come forward and claimed they have seen proof of President Obama’s circumcision.

Now I realize so far at least, this proof of circumcision requirement only applies to men (and I do mean men) running for President of the United States.  But I think this is just the tip, so to speak, of the circumcision iceberg.  I am convinced that the Tennessee Legislature will soon pass a law requiring that any candidate for public office in Tennessee must also come forth with proof of circumcision.  After all, the Tennessee Legislature has always been on the cutting edge of election law.

And so, if I want to go on the public payroll, I’ve really got to find that proof of circumcision.  Maybe my parents have a copy.  But it is kind of hard to reach them these days.  My father, Saddam Muammar Bin Haltom, and my mother, Queen Latifah Lady Gaga Haltom, have both retired to their native homeland, Bongo Congo.