AFTERBIRTHERISM.

"I guess the Obama administration felt they had milked all the political advantage they could out of refusing to release the birth certificate," huffs Rob Port of Say Anything. This familiar blaming-the-victimology is seen elsewhere -- including a post from, get this, Tom Maguire, for years king of the passive-aggressive crypto-birthers:

My Official Editorial Rumination was that there was no reason for the White House to hide it other than Obama's practice of managing his brand by hiding everything (leaving critics and skeptics unsure which haystack actually conceals a needle which may or may not exist.)

I'm sure Comrade Obama appreciates Maguire's cooperation in that strategy.

Others use the occasion to declare a big win for Donald Trump, whom the release leaves without his one reliable source of publicity, and obliged to explain to the plebes why a thrice-bankrupt blowhard should be their next President. Well, at least those investigators he sent to Hawaii got a nice paid vacation out of the deal. ("Hello, boss? We're hard on his trail! Soon as I finish this stinger -- er, report -- we're on our way to Bimini to explore the Adam Clayton Powell connection!")

But where there's dumb, there's hope! PunditPress:

Why they waited until now and why they released it to TwitPic is unknown at this time.

Update- The White House website also has this picture as the birth certificate, which for some reason, is a different color...

Cue the Colorists! Nah -- the next phase of Operation Confuse-a-Con will be led by Obama's Alinskyite soulmate, the trickster Bill Ayers.

UPDATE. PunditPress seems to have altered its post. Have to wait for the cache.

UPDATE 2. William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection takes a Questions-Remain approach:

Succumbing to the realization -- which I also predicted -- that the "Birther" strategy was failing, the White House has purported to release this morning a "long form" birth certificate.

Perhaps sensing that the purportance was not going his way, he amplifies:

Update: For some reason people have seized on the words "[i]t looks to me like a 1961 version of the short form" as a reflection of skepticism on my part. That was not my intent. I merely wanted to point out that the document doesn't look all that different than the document previously released, although it does have some additional information.

My comment at Politico's Arena:
The document goes a long way, if not completely, towards quieting the issue...

To the last ditch with Colonel Mustard! The night before he was telling people that birtherism was Good News for Republicans:

Obama may be winning in some circles, but the polling indicates that increasing percentages of Americans -- including substantial percentages of independents -- do not believe Obama was born in the U.S. or are unsure. I'll have more on the polling tomorrow, but you never hear about the numbers for independents, you only hear about the numbers for Republicans.

Hint, go out to dinner with four independent voters; then try to guess which one of them thinks Obama was born elsewhere. Because if the polls are accurate, one of them does.

Easy. He's the one with the bib.

UPDATE 3. In comments, Cargo: "The conspiracies will continue as long as the President remains black."

Thanks also to mark f for alerting me to Jonah Goldberg's related mouthfart:

Distractions, Silliness Are Our Enemy

So proclaimed Obama in his “I am a grown-up” press conference just now. He railed against “distractions” and “silliness” that prevent us from grappling with our very serious problems. Then, he left to go tape the Oprah Winfrey show and hold a fundraiser. No word on when his next tee time will be.

I can't fault his reasoning here, because he doesn't supply any; it's just a bizarre tantrum. (I was going to call it an embarrassment, but Goldberg has never shown any capacity for that emotion.) And he keeps the tone up in his own comments section:

Stan - Troll much? I've never endorsed birtherism, I've been blistering in my criticism of Trump, and all you're doing here is tu quoque b.s. By the way I'd rather be a member of a party that flirts with birtherism than trutherism.

Which Democratic Presidential front-runner endorsed trutherism, again? Somebody throw Goldberg the rubber doll to wrestle till he calms down.