Via the Blaze, confirmation at last that common ground does indeed exist between GB and The One. Just across from ABC:

“I think that over the last two and a half years there’s been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically expedient in the short-term for Republicans. But [it] creates, I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in a general election where most people feel pretty confident the President was born where he says he was, in Hawaii. He– he doesn’t have horns…we’re not really worrying about conspiracy theories or– or birth certificates,” President Obama told me…

“The truth of the matter is that I think that the vast majority of Americans across the country – Democratic or Republican – really want this election to be about growing the economy, getting control of the deficit, preparing the future for our kids. And my suspicion is that anybody who is not addressing those questions…Is going to be in trouble. I think they may get a quick pop in the news. They may get a lot of attention. But ultimately, the American people understand this is a serious, sober time,” he told me.

Beck’s point exactly, although the left will end up having a lotttt of fun with the idea of him suddenly trying to talk people out of a nefarious connect-the-dots Obama conspiracy. In any case, he’s wasting his breath: The hardcore Birthers won’t end the crusade over something as petty as a presidential election and the less hardcore are, I think, enjoying Trump’s Sheen-esque defiance of media political correctness too much right now to abandon him for reasons of expedience. The real fault line here is between people like Beck, who think this issue is a disaster in the making, and other non-Birther Obama opponents like Rush Limbaugh, who see Trump’s confrontationalism as a “blueprint” on how to beat The One. (“You just go right after him, instead of pussyfooting around, worrying about what the independents are gonna say or worried about what the people that pay attention to politics two days a year are gonna say, just go after it.”) Beck’s going to win that argument eventually, but the longer it takes for the campaign to get rolling, the longer it’ll take for Birthermania to fade. Oh well.