I am not much for conspiracy theories. I also don’t care much for those who embrace every conspiracy theory. But now I find myself in an awkward position. I have a conspiracy theory. And not only do I have a conspiracy theory, I have a conspiracy theory ABOUT a conspiracy theory.

Just as the birther movement (which holds President Obama was not born in this country) was losing steam (after losing credibility a long time ago), a democrat and long time friend of the Obama family injects into it–new life.

I have long held the opinion that team Obama likes the birthers. The existence of a fringe conspiracy group is a ready foil for the President. They are fringe, but not so fringe that any right-wing politician cannot be lumped in with them. That is why most every Republican politician has had to, in some way, disavow the birther movement.

Even today, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) was smeared with the birther label simply because he refused to engage in name calling even while explicitly saying that he believes the President is a citizen. A compliant media is more than willing to twist the facts to enable the smear. Witness this story from just today alarmingly and misleadingly entitled “Cantor refuses to denounce birthers as ‘crazy talk’”.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) became the latest GOP leader Sunday to refuse to denounce the birthers.

“This is a leadership moment here,” NBC’s David Gregory noted during an interview with Cantor. “There are elements of this country who question the president’s citizenship, who think that his birth certificate is inauthentic. Will you call that what it is, which is crazy talk?”

“David, I don’t think it’s nice to call anyone crazy, OK?” Cantor said as he chuckled. “I don’t think it’s an issue that we need to address at all.”

“Why won’t you just call it what it is?” Gregory asked. “Because I feel like there are a lot of Republican leaders who don’t want to go as far as to criticize those who…”

“I think the president is a citizen of the United States,” Cantor interrupted. “Why is it you want me to engage in name calling?”

And this is years after the birther movement has been fringified. How can the media get away with this? Because the newly elected Democrat Governor and long-time Obama family friend saved birtherism from a long overdue death. How?

Right after his election, Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie promised to put an end to birtherism once and for all by promising to release the long sought after (long-form) birth certificate. Then he made even bigger news by publicly mentioning that they were having trouble locating it. And then the entire effort is suddenly shut down by the State Attorney General.

Honestly, this whole sequence of events is just TOO PERFECT. If someone were trying to figure out how to keep this conspiracy theory alive, this is how they would do it. The only fear they might have is that it is way too bleeding obvious.

Team Obama has made excellent use of the birthers as a foil and to smear their opponents. It was just too valuable an arrow in the quiver to let it die. So they didn’t. One thing I can tell you for sure is that Gov. Abercrombie should get a nice thank you basket from the President because he just gave him a real gift.