Why the wait?

After snarking at critics for three years, Obama finally produces a real birth certificate. It's genuine, showing he was born in Hawaii.


You can easily even look up on Bing where he lived.

So the big, big question of the day: If this was available all along, and there's nothing incriminating in it, why did he not release it? What point was there in letting the controversy brew until it took Donald Trump to coax it out of him?

The president likely thinks this will make fools out of his "birther" critics, but it really makes him look foolish for holding out until only 38% of Americans believed he was a natural-born citizen. (Meaning: The doubters were not just fringe GOP kooks.) Again, what was the point?

I am glad to see the President vindicated on this matter, but am completely baffled as to why he waited to put the controversy to rest. Was it a game? A Kenyan newspaper in 2004 publicized Obama as the first Kenyan-born senator. The article has been largely expunged from the Web since he was elected President. Why didn't Obama release his real birth certificate to set the record straight when "birthers" started circulating the article, rather than obfuscate thereby arousing suspicion? It's an easy, easy thing he could have done a long time ago that would have fortified his credibility and affirmed his claim to transparency.

But now that he's finally decided to be transparent about this, it's time to inform NPR, Kenyan officials and the First Lady that his home country is indeed the U.S.A.