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Opinion: Obama birth certificate released by the president: What’s really behind his inevitable decision

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Obama birth certificate. Topic A of the day. And yesterday. And last week.

In an obvious attempt to keep the goofy issue alive a bit longer, President Obama finally released the long-form version of his birth certificate today.

Rather than simply post it on the White House website, Obama took six minutes of presidential time to visit the White House briefing room, where all the important media folks hang out waiting for their next important broadcast messenger assignment. Such a visit to such an important place by such an important person is guaranteed to attract maximum attention.

Of course, it worked. Would we be writing about this again without the president’s appearance?

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The president (full text below, as usual) said: ‘Now, normally I would not comment on....

...something like this, because obviously there’s a lot of stuff swirling in the press on at any given day and I’ve got other things to do.’ President Obama said he knows the release will not put this issue six-feet under for some birther diehards, who probably haven’t a clue where their own is. With a sigh, the Democrat from Chicago says he doesn’t know why this issue just won’t go away. Thank goodness, this fellow is patient with his people.

The reason for all the interest in something that’s been locked away by Hawaii state officials, of course, is simple. Obama ignored, disregarded, violated and/or cleverly played with one of the primary rules of politics, as if, golly, he just couldn’t understand all the interest.

If you’ve got something you want the media to desperately want, tell them they can’t have it. High school cheerleaders know this law of human behavior instinctively.

The president says he really, really wants to be talking instead about the crucial, pressing and also the really important real issues facing this nation in the 21st century: national security, the budget, debt limit, energy (but not gas prices).

However, sigh, there’s this bunch of, well, you know, different kind of fixated people distracted by something as trivial as whether he’s legally qualified to be president of the United States, as he has been for the past 827 days.

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And so, as most politicians or appointees claim when forced to do something, he’s going to release this long-form birth certificate -- just to end the distraction, mind you.

Which, of course, he could have done 34 months ago when the distraction first began. But the release will keep it going for one more day. And make him look good, a key bipartisan goal of any politician. And keep people busy on that while he does something else.

So, here you go. Talk amongst yourselves about this birth certificate thing. While the president and his wife fly Air Force One all the way out to Chicago for the singular purpose of repaying a syndicated television show host who helped them in the crucial early campaign days of 2007.

And then, while you’re still poring over the certificate and the silliness of the entire issue, the president will be flying Air Force One all the way back to New York City tonight for not one, not two, but three Democratic fundraisers. Including one that’s costing attendees more than 35G’s each.

To demonstrate his equanimity, Obama will also likely make a joke during those remarks about the silly birther issue, which will make him seem like a good-natured victim of these superficial clowns who’ve been chasing him to do what he well knew all along they would want him to do lo these many months.

Tah-dah!

Related:

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Birthers will just not give up and Obama is pleased to help them any way possible

-- Andrew Malcolm (DOB N/A)

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Statement by President Obama on his birth certificate, as provided by the White House

THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Now, let me just comment, first of all, on the fact that I can’t get the networks to break in on all kinds of other discussions -- (laughter.) I was just back there listening to Chuck -- he was saying, it’s amazing that he’s not going to be talking about national security. I would not have the networks breaking in if I was talking about that, Chuck, and you know it.

Q Wrong channel. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: As many of you have been briefed, we provided additional information today about the site of my birth. Now, this issue has been going on for two, two and a half years now. I think it started during the campaign. And I have to say that over the last two and a half years I have watched with bemusement, I’ve been puzzled at the degree to which this thing just kept on going. We’ve had every official in Hawaii, Democrat and Republican, every news outlet that has investigated this, confirm that, yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, August 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital.

We’ve posted the certification that is given by the state of Hawaii on the Internet for everybody to see. People have provided affidavits that they, in fact, have seen this birth certificate. And yet this thing just keeps on going.

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Now, normally I would not comment on something like this, because obviously there’s a lot of stuff swirling in the press on at any given day and I’ve got other things to do. But two weeks ago, when the Republican House had put forward a budget that will have huge consequences potentially to the country, and when I gave a speech about my budget and how I felt that we needed to invest in education and infrastructure and making sure that we had a strong safety net for our seniors even as we were closing the deficit, during that entire week the dominant news story wasn’t about these huge, monumental choices that we’re going to have to make as a nation. It was about my birth certificate.

And that was true on most of the news outlets that were represented here.

And so I just want to make a larger point here. We’ve got some enormous challenges out there. There are a lot of folks out there who are still looking for work. Everybody is still suffering under high gas prices. We’re going to have to make a series of very difficult decisions about how we invest in our future but also get a hold of our deficit and our debt -- how do we do that in a balanced way.

And this is going to generate huge and serious debates, important debates. And there are going to be some fierce disagreements -- and that’s good. That’s how democracy is supposed to work. And I am confident that the American people and America’s political leaders can come together in a bipartisan way and solve these problems. We always have.

But we’re not going to be able to do it if we are distracted. We’re not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other. We’re not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts. We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.

We live in a serious time right now and we have the potential to deal with the issues that we confront in a way that will make our kids and our grandkids and our great grandkids proud. And I have every confidence that America in the 21st century is going to be able to come out on top just like we always have. But we’re going to have to get serious to do it.

I know that there’s going to be a segment of people for which, no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest. But I’m speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as to the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do. We’ve got big problems to solve. And I’m confident we can solve them, but we’re going to have to focus on them -- not on this. Thanks very much, everybody. ####

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