One of the most common questions people have been asking after the release of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate yesterday has been, “Why now?” The answer is likely, as the White House has claimed, that the issue had just become too much of a distraction and the lie was becoming too pervasive. But as an added benefit, confirming once again that he is a natural-born citizen has really excited the Democratic activists who show up at the fund-raisers Obama is increasingly holding around the country. He appeared at three of them in New York last night and riffed on the birther issue at the beginning of each of them. “My name is Barack Obama,” he proclaimed at The Town Hall. “I was born in Hawaii, the 50th state of the United States of America.” The crowd went nuts. So there’s the silver lining to the whole birther conspiracy. Despite everything they’re dissatisfied about, Democrats will rally around Obama merely for being born.
