Skip ahead to 2:55 for the key bit. I think I know what’s going on here, but it’s better that you watch and form your own judgment. The key exchange:

Stephanopoulos: Well I have the president’s certificate right here. It’s certified, it’s got a certification number. It’s got the registrar of the state signed. It’s got a seal on it. And it says ‘this copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding.’

Bachmann: Well, then that should settle it.

Stephanopoulos: So it’s over?

Bachmann: That’s what should settle it. I take the president at his word and I think– again I would have no problem and apparently the president wouldn’t either. Introduce that, we’re done. Move on.

Stephanopoulos: Well this has been introduced. So this story is over?

Bachmann: Well as long as someone introduces it I guess it’s over.

Even a RINO candy-ass non-Birther like me is well enough acquainted with the nuts and bolts of the issue to know that Stephanopoulos doesn’t have his “birth certificate” in hand there. He has the Certification of Live Birth, the same document produced by The One’s campaign three years ago showing that he was born in Hawaii, which is based on information in the long-form birth certificate but isn’t the same thing. The actual long-form birth certificate is still under lock and key at the Hawaii health department; it does exist, according to a former department chief who says she’s seen it, and it does authenticate Obama’s birth in Hawaii, but neither Steph nor anyone else will get a copy until The One requests one and hands it out. Maybe Stephanopoulos knows that and is being coy by offering the COLB to Bachmann to see how she’d react, or maybe he hasn’t done his homework and genuinely thinks this is the secret document about which Birthers have been obsessing.

More interesting, though, is Bachmann’s reply: Either she’s so eager to be done with this issue that she’s willing to play along with Steph’s ignorance to lay it to rest, or she herself is so disinterested in Birtherism that she hasn’t bothered to learn the distinction between the long-form certificate and the COLB. Based on what she told Fox last week, I think it’s the latter. It sounds like she’s willing to play ball when asked about this, since some people take it seriously enough to keep posing the question, but she’d obviously rather talk about ObamaCare and the debt crisis. So she gives the constitutional answer — yes, let’s all check the natural-born box by producing our birth certificates — but she’s not so invested in the issue as to be a stickler about which “certificates” qualify. A mild surprise given her status as a hero of the base, which is where most Birthers seem to reside, but also proof that she’d rather focus on fiscal issues than question The One’s legitimacy.