Daily Kos thinks that President Obama’s release of his long-form birth certificate is a smart move because Republicans who are not tanked up on tea see the birther issue as bad for the credibility of their party.

The President’s own statement is that our country is facing urgent problems, and this issue is enough of a distraction to need putting to rest.

Of course, it will not be put to rest because it was never about place of birth or the Constitution. It’s about a man with brown skin and a funny name, whose father was from Kenya and whose mother was unconventional. It’s about race-mixing and a fixed race that didn’t come through in 2008, when McCain was supposed to win. McCain was on deck, he had the right pedigree– that’s how it’s supposed to work.

When Barack Obama was elected, it was a message to the entire world. America, for all its flaws and failures, is a democracy. Any eligible citizen can run for office, even run for president. Despite our troubled racial history, we showed the world that Americans are equal in fact as well as in law.

And now we have the loudest voices in the Republican Party demanding that the President show his papers. The Republican politicians who should have stood up to this, who should have set an example of reason and civility, have been timid and afraid to offend their fringe. They deserve to have Donald Trump win the nomination, they paved the way for him. I’m disgusted with all the politicians who tip toe around ‘what people believe’ as if the truth doesn’t matter. It’s time for the adults in the Republican Party, if they can find the courage, to show leadership.

The whole world is watching, and today we are not looking so good.

UPDATE: A smart take on why there will never be enough ‘evidence’ to appease those who want to believe. You can’t cure stupid.

PERSONAL ANECDOTE: I used to have panic attacks and experience a convincing sense that something was really wrong. If I checked and confirmed that the iron really was turned off, then I’d worry about the gas stove blowing up. You can’t fix irrational anxiety with reason. Maybe I should have got some Xanax. Whatever.
Anyway, the instant shift in focus from one crazy conspiracy theory to the next just backs up the fact that this isn’t a rational issue, it’s a hysteria afflicting a group of believers who are convinced something is wrong and are looking for a narrative to make sense of a changing world. A lot of them are waiting for the Rapture too. People are entitled to their beliefs, but when beliefs replace facts in politics we are in trouble.

UPDATE II: Convincing evidence that Barack Obama is an alien from the planet Slzrd. Wait– that might be satire… good thing I deleted it. People might think I’m credulous.