Fox News' Eric Bolling was perhaps the saddest of all the birthers. It wasn't until after President Obama released his long-form birth certificate and put the final shovel of dirt onto birtherism's grave that Bolling jumped on board with the conspiracy and all but accused Obama of releasing a fabricated document. But now that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has found himself in the birthers' crosshairs, Bolling has at long last come to the belated realization that birtherism is a ridiculous waste of time.

President Obama publicly released his long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011. That night, on his since-canceled Fox Business show, Follow The Money, Bolling invited on birther doyenne and bigoted Islamophobe Pamela Geller to pore over a blown-up version of the president's birth certificate which, according to Bolling, “had to be Photoshopped.” Following Geller's lead, Bolling explained why he was a late convert to birtherism. 

“We haven't touched this birth certificate issue since it began,” Bolling said. “We haven't touched it, but there is a legitimate question as to whether or not the president of the United States is allowed to be president of the United States.” Juan Williams tried to talk Bolling down, but to no avail. “I just have tell you for purposefully, we didn't touch it because we didn't think it was an issue until I saw this document.”

“This thing has been altered,” Bolling said. “Someone's playing with it. Once that came out, I said we have to at least ask the question.”

The birthers are still out there and they're still completely crazy, but they've found a new target: the Canada-born Ted Cruz, whom many consider a likely 2016 presidential candidate. Cruz is an American citizen by birth (born to an American mother in Calgary) and the overwhelming weight of legal analysis and argumentation indicates that Cruz is eligible to be president. The birthers, of course, are not swayed by such things -- Donald Trump, the most prominent of Obama birthers, questioned Cruz's eligibility on ABC last week.

Cruz's Canadian entanglements have been kicking around the political press for a couple of days and they finally made it to Fox News' The Five this afternoon, where Bolling -- once so insistent on determining the veracity of Obama's birth certificate and asking questions about his eligibility -- was extremely reluctant to give the story any further oxygen. “Who cares?” Bolling sighed with no small amount of exasperation. “Can we move on?”

Yes, we can move on. Congratulations on finally climbing off the birther bandwagon, Eric Bolling. Took you long enough.