Obama's birth certificate - the political angle and timing

President Obama has finally released his full, long-form birth certificate.

And, as the Guardian notes, as of the moment before the official release, 4 in 10 Republicans believe he was not born in the United States.

And, with that release, birtherism as looniness vs. allegedly serious GOP candidates, especially just a week after Arizona Gov. Jan. Brewer veteod her legislature's birther bill, becomes more stark. Brewer herself served up a poster quote to that end:

"I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for President of the greatest and most powerful nation on earth to submit their 'early baptismal or circumcision certificates' among other records to the Arizona Secretary of State," Brewer wrote in her veto letter. "This is a bridge too far."

Now, the 2012 GOP presidential campaign is slowly starting to gain traction. And, in current governance, Obama faces a GOP-lead House with significant tea party elements pushing to slash, slash, slash on the budget.

So, "a bridge too far" has been exposed to the light of day. GOP presidential candidates and House leadership alike are going to have to decide not only how strongly they want to personally repudiate birtherism, but how strong they want to repudiate it within their party as a whole.

That said, Obama gets a political kudo for the timing of this issue. He knocks Donald Trump down a peg (not that what passes for seriousness in a GOP "establishment" was taking him seriously), invites other GOP presidential candidates to play with birtherism at even greater general-election peril, and sets up "serious" GOP candidates for other offices to deal more directly with tea partiers and other true loons.

Besides Trump, this could most hurt Huckabee, given his recent comments about Obama, Kenya and anti-American anti-colonialsm. He's been quietly fence-straddling the birther issue for some time, and he's now going to have to put up or shut up. I'm waiting for the first interview of him forthcoming to squarely ask him this issue. Also hurt? Sarah Palin. Contra Salon magazine thinking Andrew Sullivan is a wingnut for asking for more information about Trig Palin's birth, her already-shredded credibility will fall even lower if she raises the birther issue more.

"Helped"? The serious but Obamacaring Romney and the serious but bland Pawlenty. And, if you're Obama, you know Romney doesn't "rally the base," and Pawlenty's attempts to do so have pandering fingerprints all over them.

Now, is birtherism going away? No, because a fair strain of it has been a smokescreen for racism, unthinking anti-Muslim feelings or some combination thereof.

Assuming Texas state Rep. Leo Berman is typical, we have clear evidence of how birtherism will shift its goalposts.

I just got off the phone with Texas GOP State Rep. Leo Berman, sponsor of his state's birther bill, and a vocal proponent of the idea that the President was not born in this country. Berman, who has explained previously that he gets much of his news via "YouTubes," was not aware of the White House's release when I called him up, but his initial reaction more or less set the tone: "I wonder why it took them almost two years to release that? That seems kind of strange."

I sent Berman the White House's statement and a copy of the certificate, and after a few minutes he called back ready to talk. "If this is the true birth certificate, I'm very happy to finally see it," he said. But today's news didn't answer his lingering doubts; if anything, it raised even more questions. Berman was comparing the White House release with another birth certificate he said was from Mombasa, Kenya. "There are two hospitals [in Honolulu] at the time and neither hospital will claim him," Berman said. "Today, if you have a hospital where the president was born they'd probably take the room where he was born and make a shrine out of it." Plus, the Kenyan certificate just seemed more compelling: "When I look at the one from Kenya, there is a British lord who is the clerk for registering all births in Kenya at that time." He added, "The one from Mombasa even has a footprint on it. Like a human footprint."

Note all the goalpost-shifting:
1. "If this is ... "
2. The reverse spinning of Obama hagiography
3. The "truthism" of the fake Kenyan certificate
4. An arguably racist (whether conscious or not) comment with "like a human footprint." Not "a human footprint," but "like" one.

Mojo is right on why this won't go away, too. Birtherism is just a smoke screen for even greater loonery. That said, Obama again gets the timing kudo.

Salon has a roundup of birther responses. A couple are fully accepting, others are splitting hairs and yet others are like Leo Berman. Those in Berman's league or beyond already had the next steps in their conspiracy thinking ready and have now unleashed them.

So, Huckabee will have to decide whether he wants to raise the Kenya issue any more.

John Boehner and Eric Cantor will have to decide how forceful they want to be when any of their caucus still spot birtherism - or when Obama's minions or other Democrats link birtherism to other tea party nonsense.

Per another story on the release and Obama's news conference.:

"We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers," Obama told reporters. "We're not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up, and pretend that facts are not facts."

And now, GOP leadership had to decide how much or how little slack to cut "carnival barkers" in its own ranks.

Well done, Mr. President, on the "timing."

Interestingly, wingnut blogger Hot Air agrees with me on the political timing issue.

More evidence that this is part of a plan? AlterNet notes that Obama seems to really want to campaign against Ayn Rand luster Paul Ryan. Now, Ryan hasn't come out as a birther, but, beyond his scorched-earth budget, he's played enough footsie with tea partiers that it's clear this is part of strategy.

Joan Walsh seems to speak for many when she talks about letting bullies win, but, you're wrong on this one, Joan.

That all said, per this history professor (and many others, including me), will Obama nonetheless find a way to blow this big gain in political capital? Or, more to the point, will he not blow it, as a campaign move, but yet not get serious with real liberal answers to the needs of everyday Americans?