Move over, Huntsman girls, there’s a new embarrassing presidential candidate child in town, and he’s itching to steal the crown, apparently. While father Mitt Romney campaigns for next week’s Iowa caucus, his son Matt and some of his brothers are stumping for him in New Hampshire. Asked about his father’s tax returns, Matt tried to flip the issue around on President Obama by, er… demanding to see his birth certificate. Does he mean this one, by any chance?

After resurrecting the long-dormant “Birther” conspiracy about President Obama’s birth certificate in an interview with Parade Magazine, Texas Gov. Rick Perry doubled and tripled-down on the issue this week. Now, though, The St. Petersburg Times is reporting that Perry now says he has “no doubt” that President Obama was born in the United States, and that he was “kidding around” when he raised the issue several times this week. Has his flirtation with the Birthers, and Donald Trump, rendered his candidacy a joke?

A long, long time ago, in early 2011, reality TV star and real estate personality Donald Trump comically became a frontrunner in Republican primary polls after questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Well, despite the President releasing a long-form birth certificate that should have ended the discussion, Trump revealed tonight to Greta Van Susteren that he’s just not convinced. Maybe those investigators in Hawaii found something new?

The biggest problem with yesterday’s revelation that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has reopened the President’s birth certificate as a campaign issue was the fact that there was no audio or video of Perry’s interview with Parade Magazine. Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough remedied that situation, somewhat, this morning, when he drafted Willie Geist and Mark Halperin into a dramatic reenactment of the beleaguered former frontrunner’s absurd interview, in which he expresses doubt about the President’s birthplace.

Just when you thought it was safe to take Orly Taitz off of your producer’s speed-dial, Texas Gov. and struggling Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry throws a “Birther” Hail Orly in a Parade Magazine interview. Months after President Obama crushed then-GOP frontrunner Donald Trump by producing his long-form birth certificate and Osama bin Laden‘s long-form corpse, Perry told Parade that he had no idea if the document was real, and that he hopes to secure The Donald’s endorsement.

On last night’s The Last Word, Lawrence O’Donnell spent an entire segment explaining what the Antichrist is, and how the image of the Antichrist hurts President Obama’s reelection chances. It wasn’t the most bizarre segment he’s ever done, but it did generate some question marks, so tonight O’Donnell explained why such a segment was important– namely, because people actually believe the President could be the Antichrist, and are going to his events to yell it out at him.

Beloved 50′s crooner Pat Boone says he does not believe President Obama was born in the United States and called his birth certificate a “photoshopped fraud.”

Earlier today on MSNBC Live, a heated discussion broke out about…heated rhetoric made yesterday by Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa Jr.. A rather tepid subject quickly devolved into more heated rhetoric which culminated in radio talk show host and Tea Party activist Tony Katz proclaiming that he “didn’t know that Obama was a Kenyan term for Rodney Dangerfield.”

Texas governor Rick Perry has been a presidential candidate for about three days, but it’s been more than enough time for Chris Matthews to make clear he isn’t buying what Perry is selling. Tonight on the program, Matthews discussed his chances with radio personality Jim Hightower and reporter Wayne Slater, telling them that he believed he “smells birtherism about this guy” and agreed with a comparison made to Donald Trump.

President Barack Obama turns 50 today– half a century since he was born in Kenya, his parents forged a fake newspaper announcement in Hawaii, and the Democratic state committed fraud to reproduce and archive a fake birth certificate. This was the well-wishing the President got from Rachel Maddow tonight, who took the opportunity to put together a look back at birther madness and the headline makers who kept it in the news.

Sigh. I don’t want to type this. My fingers are rebelling against me. This is like the blogging equivalent of visiting your high school years after you graduate. I remember how things used to be, but it just feels wrong to be here now. How is it May of 2011 and I’m still typing articles about Donald Trump and President Obama’s birth certificate? Can’t he spend his time on something important like finally looking into those fishy “the earth is round” claims? (UPDATE: Good news! The report is false. See bottom of post for more)

The New York Daily News, among many, is not exactly impressed with the pseudo-candidacy of real estate person Donald Trump, and today made it abundantly clear with a cover calling the mogul a “birther” and “racist” and an accompanying story entitled “Mickey Mouse Donald.” On tonight’s Factor, Bill O’Reilly took publisher Mort Zuckerman to task over the racist allegations, which Zuckerman argued were legitimate stemming from Trump’s birther obsession.

Where has Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal been all week? President Obama’s birth certificate finally retired as a meme last week as the President released the long-form version and rebooted the news cycle with news of Osama Bin Laden‘s death. After the “birthers” hijacked the public consciousness for a good month, no one even knows who Donald Trump is anymore, and yet Jindal chose yesterday to release his birth certificate to make a point.

Seth Meyers, taking the podium after Obama, was in his element. He took a few moments to acknowledge how upset he was that the birth certificate issue had been resolved right before the dinner, because now all of his birther material was useless. “Is Joe Biden still the vice president?” he asked. “Because if not I’m down to, like, ‘thank you’ and ‘God bless America’.”

President Obama was introduced with an intentionally cheesy video package (picture Barney Stinson’s video resume from “How I Met Your Mother”) set to Rick Derringer’s “I Am A Real American” and featuring a repeating shot of his birth certificate set against an American flag background. Obama addressed the birther issue in his speech as well, announcing “I am prepared to go a step further…I am releasing my official birth video,” which turned out to be the opening number from The Lion King. The president even had a few choice words for Donald Trump.

Yesterday may have been the wackiest media day of the year, what with the wrath of President Obama’s birth certificate being unleashed on the world. To Jon Stewart, it was a day in which the media got to say “I told you so” over and over, whether they had told you so or not. Cowering at various lectures from all across the political spectrum, Stewart and Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore handily captured the madness of the day.

With one very loud exception, finding someone who deems the release of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate a proud moment in American history is near impossible. But while many merely note how unproductive the “birther” issue has been, some Democrats are just sad to see an easy target go. As Fox News Democratic analyst Kirsten Powers explained tonight, all Republicans have wanted was “for this to go away.”

The rise and fall of the “birthers,” America’s foremost conspiracy theory punchline, has been a veritable goldmine for the nation’s comedy industry. And as with all goldmines, people get possessive about who is encroaching on whose land. Earlier today, Bill Maher objected to The Onion stealing a joke about “afterbirthers” demanding to see the President’s placenta– a joke The Onion printed six months before Maher’s performance.

Ann Coulter made an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor this evening to lend her voice to the discussion of today’s big media story: “The birth certificate thing.” Host Bill O’Reilly asked Coulter whether she could put the issue in “any kind of context that matters.” Well, said Coulter, “we were right, they were wrong,” meaning that the conservative establishment has long been denouncing the “birther” movement as a distraction and a non-issue. So, then, who’s to blame for this movement blossoming under the watchful gaze of so many television sets?

We’ve been closely following MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell‘s coverage of Donald Trump and the would-be Republican candidate (or not, if you’re inclined to agree with O’Donnell’s assessment of the situation) and we were keen on seeing what he’d have to say about Trump tonight in the wake of the White House’s presentation of Barack Obama‘s birth certificate. And O’Donnell did not disappoint.

You know, sometimes people hating the president so much that they refuse to even believe he’s even an American can lead to good things. It’s rare but it happens. Take for example the family of Dr. David A. Sinclair who had no idea until a few hours ago that his name was on President Obama’s birth certificate. Ivalee Sinclair, the doctor’s widow, woke up this morning to discover that her late husband was the one who delivered the future leader of the free world. Talk about a nice surprise. TMZ interviewed her today and it’s clear that this was quite a charming little surprise.

Rush Limbaugh was certainly tickled pink by today’s developments, reveling in the fact that a “reality TV star” had “forced Obama’s hand.” “Trump has a new catch phrase!” he exclaimed. Chuckling, Limbaugh explained that Donald Trump can now add “I won” right next to “You’re fired.”

Whoa. In just this five minute clip of The View, there were enough soundbites for about 10 posts. Yes, folks, this is why the media is so in love with the Birther issue. As Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Joy Behar, and Sherri Shepherd all railed against the topic, they took Donald Trump and the Birthers to task for a number of things, accusing him of alternately of racism, insulting the President, and hurting the country’s reputation.

Within seconds of the most embarrassing presidential press conferences since Abraham Lincoln was forced to prove he was really dead by not breathing for 12 hours, the reaction on Twitter became the most interesting thing going. Everyone’s Twitter feeds had instantly been filled with a flurry of “certificate talk” (except for mine since I only follow the soothing thoughts of Taylor Swift). Some people were lamenting the time wasted, some were parsing President Obama’s words, and, amazingly, some already seemed to be questioning the document’s legitimacy. The amazing part, of course, isn’t that people were doing that. In fact, no one expects the certificate’s release to really change anything. The amazing part is who was questioning it.

With this morning’s shocking revelation by the White House of the long form birth certificate confirming that President Barack Obama was in fact born in Hawaii (gasp!), Fox News turned first for political reaction to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (gasp!) for his thoughts on this historic day when the entire nation can rejoice and celebrate the legitimacy of our president (hooray!) However, Mr. Cantor chose not to see this day as one to celebrate, rather, he shockingly took the view that President Obama should not be wasting the nation’s time on such a silly non-issue (gasp!)