Since the Obama campaign has decided to make an issue of Romney not releasing his tax records for the past five years, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee should ask the president to release certain information about his own past he'd likely prefer to keep hidden.

President Obama’s team has offered Mitt Romney a deal. If Romney will produce his tax records for the past five years, the Obama team will cease making an issue of the presumptive GOP nominee’s unwillingness to produce his records for more than the past two years.

Romney should respond by requesting of Obama the following:

• Believable birth certificate;

• Explanation how he had a Connecticut Social Security Number when he never resided in that state;

• College records from Occidental and Columbia;

• Transcripts of records and work done at Harvard Law School;

• The reason for surrendering a license to practice law;

• Passports that enabled travel overseas; and

• Explanation as to why an elected Sheriff (Joe Arpaio) is being harassed for seeking answers to some of these questions.

If Romney will not issue such a response, he is, in effect, agreeing that that there are no legitimate questions about the Obama past. The truth is that there are many unanswered questions and an equal number of unsatisfactory explanations about the president’s past.

The American people deserve answers. Mitt Romney has been presented an opportunity to get them. Let us hope that he takes it.

(This article was originally published at TheNewAmerican.com on August 20, 2012, and is reposted here with permission.)