I’ve had a document for a while now that I have neither disclosed, or provided to Wikileaks. But now that the Donald seems on the verge of spilling the beans, I’ve decided it’s time to go public, so I can scoop, or “Trump” him (ha ha…). I can’t know for sure whether this is genuine, but in light of the rest of the history that is slowly being revealed, (e.g., by Stanley Kurtz), these Columbia transcripts that the president has refused to release look quite plausible.
I can’t see anything here that jumps out as to why he wouldn’t want us to see them. It’s not like we’re learning anything much new about him. He did have a rough semester in the fall of ’82, but he seems to have bounced back nicely by focusing on courses the final semester that were more in his wheelhouse. So as far as I’m concerned, it looks like the real deal to me.
Of course, if the White House wants to claim that it’s not, it would be quite simple to do so. If it’s not real, release the real one. It’s entirely in the president’s power.
Hey, now we can all look at the birth certificate. Obviously, there was no reason to hide it. But in the parlance of the street, Trump can now say Obama’s his bitch.
I thought it would be clear by now that the reason Obama hasn’t released his transcripts is because he’s not willing to pay the $250 Official Transcript Request Fee to Columbia.
Anyone who has dealt with a registrar’s office from just about any institution would know that there are NO exceptions to paying this fee, even for the POTUS.
“If the transcript fits, you must acquit”
I suspect the cost of keeping it hidden has come to exceed the benefits of doing so.
I’ve wondered if there was a “slippery slope” reason for keeping it secret….
once you are forced to reveal one thing you are keeping secret, it’s easier to be forced to reveal the next thing you are trying to keep secret.
As Elwin Tobing wrote in an American Thinker piece:
“An inquiry to Obama’s birthplace should be viewed in light of the sheer weight of the position he holds: a national and world leader. If the job involved were a county-level clerk position, questions about Obama’s personal history would indeed be less relevant and a distraction. Instead, what is at stake here is the America’s future. Voting for someone to be US President is akin to mortgaging the nation’s future to that individual. As such, knowledge of the background of the person is essential………
Which brings us to the real issue in the saga of Obama’s birthplace mystery: character and trust. Obama’s principles and paradigms of thinking, which guide his leadership and policy making, are not independent from his character. This is because character, which can be understood as the moral qualities unique to an individual, defines who a person really is and reveals his moral purpose, exposing the kind of actions and policies he chooses and avoids. Put simply, a good character flows from good moral principles, and good leadership proceeds from good character. No wonder Abraham Lincoln said, “Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” “
Funny, but holy schmoly is it screwing up your front page formatting. Can you put the JPG “below the fold”?
Apparently, “ask and you shall receive” is the concept of the day.
Dan Rather would be so proud
“Someone ought to sex up that seal a little. It has a white woman on there with babies, that’s so pre-PC. ”
Naked babies. So it’s already sexed up, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Joe,
[[[when you’re deciding which associate professor to hire for a full professor, do you sufficiently take into account their grad school record?]]]
Schools almost never hire for full professor, they usually hire at the Assistant or Associate level.
And no, you don’t focus on specific courses unless they are only ABD. You look at their body of publications, research and teaching experience. In short how they have actually preformed.
Also FERPA is not a joke to those schools that have been sued under it. Training on compliance is mandatory for anyone with access to school records. But suing is the student’s choice, as it is to release it.
Ken,
Thanks for the laugh. You clearly have never worked around public records.
Grievance studies eh? They must learn to celebrate Festivus in that class…
The above document is funny (love the fictional course names) and I assume this article was written as a “tongue-in-cheek” lark. Good job!
It is however an obvious forgery to even the most untrained eye. The fancy cursive-oblique font (“Monotype Corsiva” which was created in 1992 by the way) for the masthead is totally wrong for Columbia University as a matter of style. The name of the specific School within the University is missing. Other typical masthead information like a street address (Columbia is huge!) are missing. There is no date for the issue of the records — an administrative impossibility with academia. Three fonts on one page (Monotype Corsiva, Arial Bold, and Courier New) all modern computer fonts is a major typographical faux pas. Last but not least is the “redacted” address which is silly since it “in-stream” with the Courier font text. All of these errors point to a serious lack of research on the part of the document creator.
However, the most damning evidence is something called “topical distortion”. All of those odd shadows in the background are from what appears to be crumpled and then smoothed paper. These small folds where the paper was crumpled should cause distortions in the smooth lines of the fonts but there are none … zero! Not on the big curves, not on the bold blocks and not on the thin lines. No distortions of any kind. This can only mean that the wrinkled paper is an image separate from the text. Probably added in separately on another graphic layer or else printed on the paper as an image along with the text.
Anyone can see this simply by simply zooming in on the image … in IE8+ or FireFox3+ just hold the Ctrl key and then press the equals key (=) a few times to zoom in. Press Ctrl and zero (0) to return to normal. They will also see a lot of “artifacts” (white “glows”) around the letters which also strongly suggest layers were used to create the image.
I give you an “B+” for creativity but an “F-” for document forgery. 🙂