That sound you hear is me banging my head against the wall

It's presidential election season, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But that ridiculous, absurd, ludicrous, illogical, just plain stupid story about President Obama using a Social Security Number stolen from a French immigrant is making the rounds again. And it makes me crazy.

Because, first and foremost, the story just ain't true. The French guy's SSN was totally different. Just as a starter. There are other logic and fact flaws in the story, but I'm not going to get into them here. But the people who spread this story by posting it on FB or e-mailing it to everyone they know or wearing it on a sandwich board as they wander around town don't give a rat's ass whether the story is true. They just want to believe bad things about the president and jump on everything and anything they hear. Without actually thinking about it.

This is the only explanation because it seems so obvious to me that anyone, ANYONE, capable of critical thought who comes across this story should recognize the impossibility of this story being true. Really, even a brief moment of thoughtful reflection is all that should be necessary to realize that the current sitting President of the United States who was before that a Senator and before that a state Senator could not possibly be using a stolen SSN without someone, somewhere noticing it. The IRS to whom the man submits a tax return every year? The SSA who collects a tax and sends him a statement every year, showing what his current retirement income would be? The Post Office who issued him a passport? The FBI who did a background check on him before he could get the security clearance a Senator requires? Or any number of other state and federal agencies who have had to do something, process some record over the years? I mean, either we have the most inept boobs at pretty much every desk job and managerial position at just about every agency throughout the federal government (a tempting conclusion to tea partiers, no doubt, but highly unrealistic) or this would require the biggest conspiracy ever known to humankind. This conspiracy would make the forged birth certificate conspiracy look like a single drop of rain next to a hurricane. And yet, not one person, not ONE, has blown the whistle and come forward with evidence of this major and life-long felony committed by the president of our nation? And his sweet grandmother? It's ridiculous and it clearly could not possibly be true. As anyone thinking clearly and rationally should see.

But, yet, even decent people just pass on this story, via e-mail chains, without giving it a second thought. No, wait, a first thought. And so once again, presidential election season will be filled with this nonsense and a little part of my soul will die every day. Because I can't keep having this conversation. But when people cite this crap, I can't let it go, either.