Barack Obama
Image: The White House
What was Obama thinking?
The best think the President had going for him in the 2012 election was the fact that the nutters were running the show on the GOP side, and not talking at all about the real issues of the day.
Now, by releasing his birth certificate, he's taking this issue off the table, giving plenty of breathing room for the "mainstream" candidates (Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee, etc.) to easily distance themselves from the fringe candidates.
Obama should have let the Republicans squirm as long as he could, watching them deal with Donald Trump's theatrics.
Beyond that, he confirmed that it's the GOP that dominates the debate. What they want, they get. He's at their whim.