Move Over Birthers, Meet the Transcripters

Conservatives want Obama’s college transcripts to prove he’s not so smart after all.

The birthers’ singular obsession is to prove that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States and thus can’t legitimately serve as president.

The mission of the “transcripters” isn’t as clear-cut. They’re out to prove that President Obama wasn’t a great student. If true, this circle of conservatives wouldn’t get to see Obama booted out of office but would simply have the pleasure of saying that Obama isn’t as smart as everyone thinks he is.

Sounds like these conservatives have too much time on their hands, not to mention money.

You see, right-wing blogger Brooks Bayne is offering a $20,000 reward via the website The Trenches for anyone who can land a copy of the president’s transcripts from Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Bayne’s reward for the president’s transcripts used to be $10,000 but last week he doubled it.

[ALSO READ: Birthers Question Obama’s Parents in Film]

Because college transcripts are confidential — they’re protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act — it’s unlikely anyone will be able to score a copy of Obama’s school records. According to the new biography "Barack Obama: The Story," however, the president earned a 3.7 grade point average at Columbia and graduated with honors from Harvard Law. Such evidence makes it harder for the transcripters to make their case against Obama, despite Donald Trump’s claims last year to the contrary.

“The word is, according to what I’ve read, that he was a terrible student when he went to Occidental,” Trump said of Obama. “He then gets into Columbia; he then gets to Harvard. ... How do you get into Harvard if you’re not a good student?”

The insinuation here is that Obama made his way to the Ivy League by way of affirmative action, that he’s just another undeserving minority who played the system. But where was Trump when George W. Bush was outed as being a C student at Yale University? There was no movement to suggest that Dubya didn’t deserve to be in office because he wasn’t smart enough. Not only didn’t conservatives care about Bush’s mediocre academic record, he himself didn’t give a damn about it.

He told Yale graduates in 2001, “To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you too can be president of the United States.”