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Opinion: Finally, some good news for Obama: Donald Trump will not be announcing his presidential bid Sunday

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What a relief for President Obama and his staggering political fortunes!

Donald Trump, the shy, retiring developer who forced the 44th president to finally release his long-form Hawaii birth certificate after nearly four years of stonewalling other less wealthy birthers, will not be announcing his political candidacy on the season finale of ‘The Celebrity Apprentice.’

Does this mean the finale of Trump’s trumped-up presidential candidacy?.

Who knows?

Who cares?

A while back, the Queens native who would be commander-in-chief let it slip that: ‘I am thinking of saying on the live finale of The Apprentice on May 22 that in a few days I will be making an announcement about my decision.”

Millions of frustrated Americans, who regularly talk back at their television screens in a plaintive attempt to be heard among the special interests, got very excited.

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That’s because with the current crowd of pols reciting their stale lines on Washington’s national political stage, Elmer Fudd would look fresh and intriguing as a candidate.

Blah-blah-blah delighted to be here. Blah-blah-blah spending. Blah-blah-blah middle ....

... class. Blah-blah-blah most vulnerable. Blah-blah-blah broken so blah-blah-blah reforms. Blah-blah-blah their budget. Blah-blah-blah our budget. After 841 days, what’s changed with the change guy, besides the depth of debt? Why believe the other suits would be any different? Along comes a successful carnival barker, who can read internal polls as well as any David Axelrod. And he sees the birther deal gaining traction among more Americans saying, in effect: ‘I don’t give a fax about Obama’s birth, but all he does is travel, golf and talk a lot. And if he’s got nothing to hide, why not release it?’

So like any developer who spots a prime vacant lot, Trump makes a move, starts asking the same questions loudly. The media eggs him on as its interrogatory surrogate. And the president’s people, who are Chicago Democrats unaccustomed to actual opponents, let alone clever uppity ones, see the same adverse birther numbers growing and decide pragmatically to pull the plug on this unnecessary silliness.

Shamelessly, Trump claims credit. And the plain-spoken opportunist’s poll numbers soar for a while because he is the current Anti-Blah.

He is also the mildly entertaining sideshow that folks watch while waiting in line to see the main event.

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Sideshows like Ron Paul and Herman Cain and Rick Santorum and, in the past, Fred Thompson, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes and Howard Dean, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. No one but themselves ever took their White House chances seriously.

Now about Trump’s eagerly awaited Sunday night TV announcement. It ain’t gonna happen. A spokeswoman for NBC Entertainment tells the National Journal in no uncertain terms: ‘There will be no announcement.’

Here’s the interesting part: The Apprentice’s two-part season finale isn’t going to be live. It never was.

In fact, the season finale was taped back around last Thanksgiving. It’s all been in the can for six months. Everybody on the inside knew that -- the winner, the losers and the guy named Trump. Only the duped dummies watching may have been fooled.

So in the end, Trump was actually running two reality con shows -- one on NBC and another one everywhere else.

Now, that’s a finale!

-- Andrew Malcolm

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