Ending the Debate?

President Obama released his full birth certificate in an effort to quiet the "birthers." Read the Washington Post article here.

Is this an end to the silliness? Probably not. Already, people are picking apart the birth certificate in an effort to analyze its legitimacy. One commenter literally said, "He got the CIA to forge this for him." Really? Though the CIA has done some questionably legal things, I'm pretty sure the Agency has better things to do with its time than create fake birth certificates.

I wish more politicians were interested in real dialogue. Baseless attacks like this one are just a distraction. Some of the Republicans seem to like the distraction, presumably because they don't have any real ideas to fix the economy.

On the other hand, people like Karl Rove seemed frustrated by the "birther" issue because it just made the Republicans look like idiots. In that way, Obama may have helped the Republican Party by disclosing the long form certificate. From the Democratic perspective, it's useful to make the opponent look delusional.

What all of this indicates, though, is that we're still too focused on things that don't really matter. Both parties love these side issues because they don't have solutions to the big problems.

I'm not saying I have solutions. I don't. That's why I vote, so I can put people in power who hopefully do have solutions. But all too often, there's a lack of focus in Washington.

We needed to move on yesterday. Let's hope that actual change is finally coming tomorrow.