We see almost every day a story about a doctor, a lawyer, whatever, who is discovered to have never entered medical school, law school or any other post graduate school, and yet were accepted as being who they claimed to be because they produced fake credentials. It used to be you used to have to prove yourself, but now all you need is a good looking piece of paper. And it goes beyond faking it to get a job in a law firm. In November 2008 the American public elected as president a man who was completely unknown to anyone but himself and his handlers. His credentials were presented for inspection in his autobiographies, and unexamined. His claim to have graduated from Harvard and Columbia has never been confirmed, for his school transcripts are mysteriously not available for inspection, and no one at either school remembers having ever seen him there. His early life is shrouded in mystery. If the truth is as he says it is, why are the records not available? Where are the people he hung around with in school? Why is the national media so incurious?

Credentials matter, not the names
No further need we look
A man is what his paper claims
His life an open book
A president, we all agree
Whose life is papered lies
A doctored, fraudulent CV
Means that the country dies