Sounds good. With ObamaCare melting The One’s poll numbers and a legislative tsunami rolling in on the Democrats, what better way to capitalize than with a crackpot distraction that’ll give every loose cannon on the America right a soapbox on MSNBC?

Note to John Boehner: It’s time for a closed-door “strategy session” with House Republicans on this subject.

The other main issue dealt with numerous speakers questioning Obama’s birth certificate and why there wasn’t an investigation into whether he is a naturalized citizen. One woman said a newspaper announcement of his birth in Hawaii was not sufficient. Another asked how he could have a passport without a birth certificate.

Franks said there was not enough evidence that Obama is not an American citizen. He did say there was a lot of conflicting evidence of Obama’s citizenship and that he was considering filing a lawsuit, the only congressman to do so. Franks asked why the president did not simply produce a birth certificate.

One speaker, a pre-school teacher, tearfully said Obama denounced the country as a Christian nation and warned he should learn a civics lesson. Franks agreed with her saying he was offended that Obama denigrated the country on an overseas trip and the president should speak in favor of the country when abroad.

As recently as last month, Franks was a vocal anti-Birther. I assume he flipped after seeing the Birther polls, which is insane if true: No one’s going to mount a primary challenge over this issue but it’s a handy bludgeon for Democratic challengers to use in the general election as an appeal to centrists. Even more depressing? According to lefty stat-meister Nate Silver, the GOP’s momentarily favored to pick up Senate seats and break the Dems’ filibuster-proof majority next year — unless they end up kneecapping themselves with this, of course. Exit question: If Birtherism flames out, what’ll be the next spark for an anti-Obama conspiracy theory? Hmmmmmm.

Update: Franks’s spokesman says it’s all a big misunderstanding.

To clarify — the Congressman’s comments at Saturday’s Mohave County town hall were misrepresented in the original report that you quoted. His statement was that he had, at one time, considered the possibility of filing a lawsuit back when the issue was first brought to his attention before and just after the election. However, after compiling and analyzing a significant amount of research, including looking into all the pertinent public records such as the “short form” birth certificate, the affidavits from public officials certifying the existence of the long-form certificate, and the birth records in the local Hawaii newspaper, it was his conclusion that the evidence indicated that Barack Obama was indeed physically born in the state of Hawaii, and that there was NOT a sufficient basis to file a lawsuit. Nothing has changed since then and he has been quoted multiple times in the press as saying that the believes “Barack Obama was born in Hawaii when Hawaii was a State, and therefore is a Constitutional, natural-born citizen of the United States.” The Congressman continues to maintain that belief.

That being said — he also believes it’s ridiculous for the President of the United States, who ran on a platform of transparency and accountability, to dismiss so glibly the concerns of literally millions of Americans, and allow such a ridiculous debate to continue when it could so easily be settled once and for all. It should not be too much to ask for the leader of the free world to allay the concerns of a large number of the people he represents by producing his long-form birth certificate, which is the definitive, inarguable way that he can put people’s concerns about his national identity to rest for good.