Here are the easy questions:

1.     Is Barack Obama Constitutionally a citizen of the Unites States, and thus legally entitled to be president of the United States?

2.     Is Barack Obama a Christian or is he a secret Muslim?

I am continually puzzled about what makes these questions so hard for Conservatives and Tea Partiers to wrap their heads around. Here are the answers:

1.     This appears to be a trick question. The answer is, Yes, of course. His mother was a native-born U.S. citizen. His U.S. citizenship is thus his birthright (as is also the case with John McCain). The physical location of his birth is Hawaii, but this is actually irrelevant to the question. Obama could have been born in the Panama Canal Zone (as was McCain), or Kenya or Indonesia or the USSR or the Moon. The physical location of his birth is simply not important in this case.

2.     This is also apparently a trick question. The answer is, It doesn’t matter and it’s nobody’s business, except his and his God’s. This answer should be of particular importance to, say, Mormons who want to be christian, president, since many Christians don’t consider them to be Christian either.

Now I’ll pose two questions:

1.     Why don’t responsible Republican and other Conservative leaders remind their followers that United States citizenship is hereditary though either parent, and therefore Barack Obama is indisputably – I repeat, indisputably, based simply on his mother’s birth certificate, as well as his own — qualified by birth to be President of the United States?

2.     Why don’t responsible Republican and other Conservative leaders remind their followers that religion is a personal matter, and is not relevant – Constitutionally or otherwise — to one’s qualifications for the Presidency?