It is really amusing to see how the release of President Obama’s birth certificate has turned out to be a license for a lot of people to go public with their breathtaking stupidity. Case in point:

Eric Bolling [of Fox Business News] hosted Pamela Geller to discuss in all seriousness whether Obama’s long-form birth certificate was “photoshopped.” Geller has been making a fool of herself over Obama’s birth certificate for three years now, alleging that Obama’s certificate of live birth was a “forgery” that previously belonged to a “female.” Nonetheless, Bolling apparently thought she was an important voice to include last night.

After pointing at a blown-up version of Obama’s long-form certificate and discussing whether the borders were “Photoshopped,” Bolling concluded that “it may or may not be, but it certainly opens up the can of worms that there are at least questions.”

Here’s an example of the kinds of “questions” Bolling now has. After noting that the doctor that signed the birth certificate had “passed away,” Bolling pointed out that the doctor’s wife and son both were unaware that he had delivered President Obama. Bolling asked: “If you gave birth to the president of the United States, don’t you think your family would know about it?”

The doctor died in 2003.

Let that sink in for a second.

At the time, Barack Obama was a little-known state senator in Illinois. If the doctor had told his family before he died that he delivered the future president, that would have spawned a much more interesting conspiracy theory (he’s a wizard!). Apparently Eric Bolling thinks obstetricians give their families a list of the most interesting people they delivered — with a special section for “potential future presidents” — before they die.

On second thought, it’s not just stupidity, it’s the absolute inability of these people to accept reality. It goes beyond intellectual shortcomings or a lack of curiosity. It is an article of faith with them and therefore unshakable despite logic and tons of proof that contradicts their belief. It is like religion, and you cannot assault their faith with trivial things like tons of proof. These people are like creationists: the universe was formed in six days a little over 6,000 years ago and Adam and Eve were real people. They cannot give up their tenet of faith because that means that everything they believe in is suspect, and no one can live without that kind of foundation, even if it is based on fiction, fable, or just plain lies.

In this case, Barack Obama was born in Kenya, he’s really a Muslim, and his father was the man on the grassy knoll in Dallas in November 1963, there to make sure that history fulfilled the destiny of his two-year-old son to become the first black president. (Hey, it could have happened.)

There is also the considerable financial loss these people would face if they had to admit that after all these years and all the pixels expended they were wrong; that Barack Obama really is one of us. Pamela Geller couldn’t get a gig on a 4-H cooking show on basic cable in Petoskey if she had to publicly admit she was wrong, even if she admits it to herself. There’s a whole industry invested in Birther, Inc., and it would be very bad for business if they had to go the same route as Big Tobacco and concede that the product they sell is dangerous and causes cancer.