Oct 25, 2012 3 min read

Typically, the ravings of lunatics go largely unnoticed, whether it be the fellow who talks to himself at the bus stop or the guy on the street who claims to have direct conversations with the Almighty. And then, there is Donald Trump, and even though most everyone knows he shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than the people mentioned above, the greater news media still seem to hold out some remote hope that something he says, sometime, will be true or interesting or, well, newsworthy. Unfortunately, Trump’s batting average remained at .000 earlier this week, after he had breathlessly promised to make an announcement so earth-shattering it could very well shift the outcome of the upcoming election between President Obama and Mitt Romney. And what we got instead was Trump, the birther and blowhard extraordinaire, announcing he would cough up $5 million and donate it to the charity of the president’s choice if only Mr. Obama would release his college records and passport application. What Trump hopes to glean from those documents wasn’t really clear from the accounts we saw, but we presume it has something to do with the long-debunked idea that Obama is some sort of commie, socialist, radical Muslim – from Africa, of course. There was no word on whether Trump had offered even an Indian-head penny to get Romney to release his tax returns. There was one benefit from Trump’s latest act of self-importance. Twitter was alive with snappy responses to the mogul’s “news.” Here are a few collected by Dylan Stableford of Yahoo News!: n “Our expectations about @realDonaldTrump’s Obama announcement were clearly not low enough.” – New York Magazine n “BREAKING: Donald Trump demands to know what medical school Dr. Dre went to.” – Twitter user #BScalabrine24 n “Trump will give $5 million if Obama releases his college records. I’ll give a crackhead $3 if Trump releases that squirrel sittin’ on his head.” – @WatchJ n “We’re going to make a very important cat announcement shortly that will change the Internet.” – BuzzFeed n “Donald Trump is the Honey Boo Boo of rich people.” – @MorgonFreeman n “This Donald Trump character is Andy Kaufman’s greatest bit ever.” – Aaron Blitzstein At this stage of the presidential campaign, any announcement in the “October surprise” category, no matter which candidate it targets, should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Any “revelations” of long-ago activities by the two men seeking the Oval Office, whether it be something Obama did as a college student or something Romney did while a young Mormon missionary, should be taken for what they are – attempts to swing a few votes in the closing days of the campaign. What should be important to us are the policies and promises of the two men as they stand before us today, just days before the election. Surely, voters have enough information about the president and the former Massachusetts governor from their much more recent pasts – and more importantly, information that actually is germane to how they might govern – to help make their decisions on Election Day. As for Trump, the real surprise this October – or any other month – is that anyone cares what he says, about anything. He, along with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Orly Taitz, Jerome Corsi and the like, should long ago have been laughed out of the public arena. The biggest favor Trump could do for the American people is to renounce his U.S. citizenship and move elsewhere. Kenya, maybe?