Texas Tea Party Sen. Ted Cruz signaled he is definitely running for president in 2016 by releasing his birth certificate this week. The scan he provided is posted above and, as you can see, it just seems fake, doesn’t it? The document purports that Cruz’s real name is not “Ted,” it’s Rafael Eduardo Cruz — the certificate says his middle name is “Edward,” but that was probably Photoshopped from Eduardo to make him sound more American. But the clincher is, it says he was born in Canada, which — for the benefit of any low-info Fox viewers who may read this — is a foreign country.

The document indicates that his mother was an American but that his father, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz, was a Cuban national. Because of this, the media is drawing parallels between Cruz’ citizenship status at birth and Pres. Obama’s. The president was also born in a foreign country — Hawaii — to an American mother and a non-American father. Barack Obama Sr. was a citizen of Kenya, which was then a British colony. One significant difference is that while Obama’s father has been accused of being “anti-colonial” (just like George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the first three U.S. presidents) Cruz’ father admits he fought for the communist dictator, Fidel Castro.

I could come up with a dozen reasons why the scan of Cruz’ purported birth certificate gives me the feeling it is a Photoshop chop job, but why bother coming up with new ideas when we can just recycle the rationale from a Birther screed that I found on the Internet by just search and replacing “Barack Hussein Obama” for “Rafael Eduardo Cruz”:

We knew the day Sen. Rafael Eduardo Cruz of Texas announced the release of his birth certificate that the document would be checked nine ways to Sunday for authenticity. Well, the Internet sleuths have done their work and preliminary indications are that it is not only fake, it is not even a good fake. I have documents that are 43 years old that are yellowed, creased and wrinkled. I wonder why Cruz’ looks brand new? Maybe that is because it is brand new. Perhaps this is why he spent millions of dollars to prevent its release only to hastily let it out when he started to lose the PR battle over the issue.

The evidence is so overwhelming that the birth certificate is a fake, it is as if he is toying with us. Cruz seems to be daring anyone to verify the document and apply it to a constitutional standard. It’s like, “Yeah, it’s fake. What are you going to do about it?” His intent is obviously to stir up infighting between his opponents and throw them off track.

Assuming the birth certificate was real, another issue regarding his constitutionality to be president that is often overlooked is the definition of a natural born citizen. Until recently, the common understanding of a natural born citizen was that all persons born within the U.S., of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, were natural born citizens. Cruz’ father (being Cuban and one-time supporter of the communist dictator Fidel Castro) would by this definition exclude Cruz as a natural born citizen. He would be classified a naturalized citizen. (Emphasis added.)

More details about his birth certificate will surely come out over time. There are many things about his past that are unexplained or hidden from public view. Most of his life before he was elected to the U.S. Senate last year has been covered up. In time, probably after he leaves office, it will all come out. It always does.

There is no political advantage for Democrats to pursue the false birth certificate. That should have been done in 2010. To do so now, in fact, would be a disservice to their efforts to defeat him politically. Cruz is just a figurehead for the Tea Bagger movement, and the Dems will need to defeat him on the issues or their calls for a return to progressivism won’t really matter anyway. If Cruz is elected president and Dems try to impeach him or litigate this issue in court, Cruz knows it will go nowhere. History and the court of public opinion will be the ultimate judge of President Rafael Edward Cruz.

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