Sean Hannity, always the shrinking violet concern troll, is never the birther, of course. He just allows idiots with idiot theories to be softball interviewed on his show to sound the dog whistles, which will then be echoed by the likes of Breitbart, Glenn Beck, and the Fox morning crew.

But this one is particularly stupid. Even the dumbest Fox viewer ought to be scratching their head over this one. Wayne Allyn Root has been pimping his story for a very long time on sites like World Net Daily and more recently, Glenn Beck's The Blaze. It goes like this: Root went to Columbia at the same time that Barack Obama went to Columbia but Root has no recollection of Obama, therefore, Barack Obama must have been a foreign exchange student.

Root's story is so weak even Reason.com is embarrassed by it (and him):

Former Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate and current Libertarian National Campaign Committee Chair Wayne Allyn Root is why libertarians can't have nice things. Case in point: Root's latest column at Glenn Beck's The Blaze.

Let me sum it up for you: Mitt Romney should offer to release more tax returns only if Obama will release his college transcripts. This will take the pressure off Romney, and put the scrutiny back on Obama, except that Obama will never release his transcripts because he pretended to be from another country to get loans and then seldom went to classes at Columbia and got poor grades. Wayne Allyn Root knows all this because he also graduated from Columbia in 1983 and doesn't remember seeing any black people "Barry Soetoro."

This awful, weird, conspiratorial column, just linked by Matt Drudge, will probably be the most widely read thing Root has ever written. Its existence is a tragedy for Libertarians and libertarians.

And here is why we should believe Root, according to Root:

I am President Obama’s classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I am also one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators. Accurate enough that I was awarded my own star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. And I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years since graduating Columbia.

In other words, believe me because my gut tells me something's rotten in Denmark. Never mind David Maraniss' thoroughly researched biography which includes many interviews with classmates at Columbia, not to mention the old girlfriends, the letters, and the soul-searching.

These are not made-up things. Root's "hunch" is a made-up thing, meant to once again suggest that Barack Obama is not like us, that he's not really American, that he is an other. That's bad enough, but Hannity enabling him is just desperate posturing in order to avoid the real issue on the table: What is Mitt Romney hiding in his tax returns?

They will keep deflecting and obfuscating, and then release the 2011 return on October 15th when it is filed, but we will never, ever see Mitt Romney's tax returns. And Sean Hannity will continue to run interference for Mittens with bullsh*t interviews like this one.

Are Fox viewers really this stupid? I guess they are, since all the wingers on Twitter are pinging me with their nonsense about Obama's college transcripts. Because, well, Wayne Allyn Root has a hunch.

Last I knew, the Presidency wasn't a Vegas betting table, no matter what Shelly Adelson would like us to think.