As you may have heard, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D), upon taking office, declared that he was going to be the guy to settle the whole "Obama birth certificate" matter once and for all, with the aim of getting all of the birther kooks to stop calling up Hawaii state officials and pestering them with their delusions. Dave Weigel, America's foremost birther primatologist, thought it was a mistake to even bother -- a stance with which I concurred, because you cannot satisfy crazy people. You can only medicate them.
That said, you can part fools from their money, and that's apparently a component of what Abercrombie wants to do. Per the Associated Press:
Moving to dispel claims that President Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii, his supporters in the state's legislature have introduced a bill that would allow anyone to get a copy of his birth records for a $100 fee.
The idea behind the measure is to end skepticism over Obama's birthplace while raising a little money for a government with a projected budget deficit exceeding $800 million over the next two years.
The bill's sponsor, state Rep. Rida Cabanilla, says, "If it passes, it will calm the birthers down." She's wrong about that! But if Hawaii can make a little scratch off of their obsessions, all the better. This is a brilliant way of turning birtherism into something that's not completely pointless.
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