Obama Releases Birth Certificate: See, That Wasn't So Hard

President Obama awards a key alley, CNN, doing a two-part series on the contents of Al Capone’s Vault revealing who is John Galt revealing who is Keyser Söze Obama’s birth certificate. With part two scheduled to air tonight, Obama gives the liberal network something big to go out on.

So without further adieu…Here’s the birth certificate.

Ed Morrissey writes that this will do little to slow down the birther conspiracists:

The big question is this: will it make any difference? The conspiracy theorists have long speculated that the state of Hawaii’s law that allows parents to get a birth certificate after having a child abroad (true) gives them the option to declare Hawaii the birthplace (not true). Others insist “natural born” means born of two American citizens, which is not only not true but would have disqualified Michael Dukakis in 1988, whose parents were both Greek immigrants. I’m going to guess that this will only shake off those with minimal or moderate attachment to the birth certificate issue, and that the industry will somehow muster onward after this bleak day.

Hey, the truthers, fake moon landing, and JFK conspiracy freaks are all soldiering on; why would this stop the birthers?

Glenn Reynolds declares Trump: One, Obama: Zero and notes that Trump is at least smart enough to keep the pressure on, even though this issue is now moot:

So I was at the gym when they finally caved and released the birth certificate – and on both the Fox and the CNN monitors I saw Donald Trump, who quickly started talking about . . . gasoline prices. See, he knows how to keep the pressure on. Other GOP candidates might want to take a lesson. Maybe they could talk about milk.

UPDATE: Trump: Now Release Your College Records!

ANOTHER UPDATE: The White House may think it’s sprung a trap, but I think they waited too long. By now — as the polls from earlier this week showing how many independents thought Obama wasn’t born here, and which probably prompted the release decision, indicate — the damage is done. Even if people change their minds on the issue, for many the residual suspicion will remain: The thought that regardless of where he was born, there’s something shady about him.

Plus, from the comments: “Media: admit it, Trump forced the issue. Now, don’t let the WH distract you w/the birth crt from what Bernanke says today. Stay focused.” It’s more about the gas prices and the milk. Media spin won’t change those.

And speaking of media spin, at the Tatler, Amy Holmes spots yet another curious quote from the president:

“I know that there is going to be a segment of people for which no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest,” Obama said. “But I am speaking for the vast majority of the American people as well as for the press [emphasis mine]. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.”

Amy asks:

Does Obama believe he speaks for the press? Does “The Press”? We’ll find out if they object. And, of course, once again: Imagine if Bush had made the same claim…

Of course Obama speaks for the modern press. Back in the 1920s, the iconoclastic H.L. Mencken wrote that “It is the prime function of a really first-rate newspaper to serve as a sort of permanent opposition in politics.”

Flash-forward almost a century, and his would-be successors on the JournoList declared themselves a key element of the “non-official campaign” of one party’s presidential candidate. CNN declared themselves the Rev. “Wright-Free Zone.” Tavis Smiley of PBS said on the air at the beginning of 2009, “We’re all working for Barack Obama.” A year later, CNN baked a cake in honor of the president:

You can’t fault the president for giving one of his periodic shout-outs to his campaign staffers, right?

Update: Roger L. Simon asks, “Are the gullible folks who pre-ordered this book going to get their money back? (It’s still #28 on Amazon.)” But notes what’s still out there:

This doesn’t mean I don’t think the press haven’t hidden or deliberately been disinterested in plenty of important details about Barack Obama (his education, political relationships, etc.) that we should know about, but stick to those that have true policy implications. Here’s one we have all known about for a few years – the unreleased Khalidi tapes, currently in the hands of the LA Times. With the Middle East in turmoil, that would be particularly interesting now.

And that’s why this is a mixed-blessing for Obama: I don’t think the American people like to think of their presidents as mysterious puzzle-boxes waiting to be solved — particularly one whom, as the Daily Caller notes in their post on the Birth Certificate release, “proudly vowed his administration would be the ‘most open and transparent in history.'” Shouldn’t that openness and transparency apply to the man at the top, as well?

Update: Heh.

Meanwhile, Drudge keeps the pressure on:

Oh wait, Rand Simberg has the exclusive on that one…