Let me finish tonight with reality. Here is the reality: The Republican party has become the "birther" party. This is not an alternative reality. It is the humdrum, get up in the morning, brush your teeth, take a shower, go to work, reality of today's heirs to the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and, yes, Ronald Reagan.
In their world, the man in the White House, the elected president of the United States is a usurper, an imposter, an alien from another land who has hi-jacked Air Force One and owes loyalty to God-knows-what? Forty-seven percent say they know he was born in another country. Another 22 percent say they don't know what country he was born in.
Grand total sixty-nine percent - seven in ten Republicans lack the simply, most basic confidence that the President of the United States is a valid, legitimate, true holder of that office.
They believe the hospital lied, the state of Hawaii lies, his parents lied, he lied, the local newspapers lied and everyone who grew up with him or said they did lied. They believe every document is at bottom a forgery and that he in saying who is, is an existential fraud. He is the victim of the greatest identity theft in human history.
All this, they say, is possible in this 21st century country where people know just about everything about each other: we just don't know who this guy really is. So this suggestion about "birther-ism" being a distraction from the central issues of our time has not really caught up with the reality.
No wonder Trump has said he doesn't want to talk anymore about birtherism. He's made his case - he helped convert the Republican Party into a birther party.