Obama Must Release His High School Transcripts

This week we saw renewed attacks by both the Obama campaign and various Democrats, notably Harry Reid. The campaign has stated that Romney should release his tax returns in the interest of transparency while simultaneously insinuating under the table that there are nefarious skeletons in Romney's closet regarding his role at Bain Capital and off-shore accounts.

Well two can play at that game. In past elections, we have seen Al Gore, George W. Bush, and John Kerry's college transcripts, (none of which were particularly impressive). We didn't see John McCain's records, though he admitted his class rank (894 of 899), poor grades in math classes, and an inordinate amount of demerits for insubordination and rule breaking.

Both Romney and Obama went to very prestigious graduate schools, the same one in fact, for the same degree (though Romney picked up an MBA while he was there as well), so it is likely their grades were not only good, but probably similar. So one must ask, why has Obama shown so much resistance to releasing his college transcripts?

Elements of the birther movement, looking for a new lead to latch onto, since the last several leads they have had were either debunked or ignored, believe that Obama, who at the time went by the name Barry Soetoro, is listed on his transcripts as a foreign student. They surmise that given his family's modest history, the only way he could have afforded such expensive schools as Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard would have been with scholarships, many of which are reserved for foreign students.   

However, Obama has maintained he was born in America and has always been an American citizen. So, by his own admission, this is not hidden in his transcripts. So, why hide them?  What is in Obama's transcripts that is so sinister he must withold them? In the last few elections, transcripts have been public (though not always by will of the campaign).

Ordinarily, I don't give in to conspiracy theories, but Obama has made it a point of withholding as much as he can about his past, and various inconsistencies that have arisen, such as his publishers mistakenly billing him as a Kenyan author for almost ten years.

And with all that happening, his campaign and proxies in the media have the gall to go after Romney's tax records, insinuating everything from Romney being richer than he claims, ( according to Ted Nugent, Romney is "not paying any taxes at all via loopholes and nefarious means" ), to committing felonies.

These last few years, I have been surprised again and again with the boldness of the Obama administration's hypocrisy. They are excellent at putting their opponents on defense, and with the aid of a complacent media, exceptionally talented at making people forget that for all their talk about everyone else not being transparent enough, they have been running one of the most opaque administrations in this nation's history. So much so that even ultra-Lib Henry Waxman (D-CA) is complaining about it.

Mitt Romney should call Obama's bluff.  The Obama campaign desperately wants Romney to release his tax records. Romney should do so, along with his college records, but on the condition that Obama does the same with his. Both campaigns like to talk about transparency in government, and keep promising the American people that they are honorable and trustworthy. How can we believe either of them when they are deliberately keeping otherwise harmless information from us for no obvious reason?  

Wayne Root, admittedly a Libertarian, but also a classmate of Obama's at Columbia, same year, same major, no memory of Barry Soetoro every being there, believes that there is something amiss, and thinks that if Romney does call Obama's bluff, the Democrats will never ask after his tax returns again. That may be so, but it doesn't do the country any good when both options for the presidency are actively hiding themselves from the American people. Democracy only works when people have information, and right now the candidates are actively hurting the democratic process by withholding it.