I rarely post on Facebook and when I do, I’m reminded why. The current brouhaha on my page started with the simple thought that I find it more relevant to see a presidential candidate’s tax returns than his birth certificate. A rational person should be willing to stipulate that any candidate, especially one for the highest office in the land is the result of a Live Birth.

A rational person should also reject out of hand the narrative that one of our national parties did such a poor job vetting their candidate that they missed the fact that he was not American-born. Or that a plot was hatched more than 4 decades earlier to hide his real provenance and create an electable subversive. If I was masterminding that scenario, I wouldn’t have chosen a child of mixed parentage with a Muslim father. I would’ve had him named something like William Smith or George White or Robert Eisenhower.  Almost anything but Barack Hussein Obama. And I would’ve had him born in Des Moines, Iowa.

Romney’s “joke” in Michigan last month about no one asking him for his birth certificate might have been a tad funnier if it hadn’t been meant to stir up wingnut birthers and if his dad, who also ran for president (1968) wasn’t born in Mexico.

When Romney entered the Republican primaries in 2007, both my wife and I thought he looked like a credible candidate, one who definitely merited consideration. He seemed to have the credentials and we were disappointed that he lost out to John McCain, especially after McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. More than not being a serious candidate, to an objective observer she wasn’t even a serious person. Emphasis on Romey’s continued morphing of positions seemed over-stated, little more than a politician in high-speed evolution.

Going back to 1994, though a pattern emerged. Ted Kennedy was considered vulnerable in his run for re-election to the Senate because of a general dissatisfaction with the Democrats and the earlier murder trial of William Kennedy Smith. Still irked by his dad’s loss to Richard Nixon, Romney learned to be “flexible” on issues to win voters. The strategy didn’t pay off and he returned to private life, to later become the 70th governor of Massachusetts.

In Massachusetts his one laudable act was reforming health care, which he now treats as a red-headed step child. While in office Romney’s fiscal woes benefitted from an already-in-place capital gains tax increase (over $1 Billion) and a federal grant ($500 Million). He also raised “fees” on everything from marriage and business licenses to car registration, liquor and gasoline taxes. And when I say “fees”, read “taxes” because that’s what they really are, unless you’re the one levying them. It just seems disingenous to now run on a platform eschewing Obamacare and ANY increase in taxes.

As for Romney’s private sector experience, think Gordon Gecko. Stripping out companies and bankrupting them with debt creates an upward flow of wealth, hardly a business model for creating jobs or growing a national economy. Every period of economic growth in this country (and others) has been fueled by demand from a growing, empowered middle class. Trickle down from above never seems to trickle down and has never grown an economy, here or anywhere else. It’s great if you’re the “trickler”, not so much if you’re the “tricklee” .

My next entry, Butter v. Guns will be about saber-rattling, voracity and foreign policy.  Look for it next week.