**Written by Doug Powers

This morning, Donald Trump promised to deliver comments on the issue of President Obama’s birthplace. Trump did offer some words on that issue — eventually — but there was a lengthy unrelated lead-up first, and the media flipped. It was even described as a hostage situation:

Donald Trump said “Jump,” and TV news said “How high?”

It happened again on Friday morning when the Republican presidential candidate held the media hostage for nearly an hour after promising a major news announcement.

“Breaking News: Trump To Make ‘Big Announcement’ on Birther Issue,” said the banner on MSNBC.

“Soon: Trump To Address Birther Issue,” said CNN’s banner. Fox News was, of course, along for the ride.

While they waited, and waited, Trump provided what amounted to a campaign infomercial and shamelessly promoted his new Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington.

When it was over, and he had said the absurdly obvious — that he now accepts that President Obama was born in the United States — there was, at least, some long overdue indignation.

“We got played again,” CNN’s John King said on the air. And that was as obvious as the announcement itself.

Trump keeps reporters waiting for 45 minutes to get to the point and they freaked out, but a traveling press corps kept following Hillary around for weeks on end whining that she never said a word to them and I don’t recall that ever being described as a hostage situation. Maybe Trump was just hoping Obama would have paid a big ransom to secure the release of some of the WH’s coveted lapdogs.

CNN took the lead when it came to impatience with Trump today:

Want some cheese to go with that whine?

By the way, the Hillary campaign and MSM (along with “fact checkers”) are laughing off suggestions that the “birther” movement originated within the Clinton campaign when Hillary was running against Obama for the Dem nomination. However, a former Washington bureau chief for McClatchy news claims that in 2008 Sidney Blumenthal tried to get him to report that Obama was born in Kenya. Or we can take what the Clintons say at face value, and the majority of the MSM will do just that.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe