Newt and friends blame Obama for inventing, popularizing birtherism: The popular way for "respectable" conservatives to dismiss birtherism without insulting the birthers (who, remember, make up something like 400 percent of the Republican Party, according to various scientific polls) is to call it a "distraction," or darkly insinuate that Democrats might be behind the whole thing. This is traditionally known as "blaming the victim," and it is what right-wingers basically always do when they're not "playing the victim," which they tend to also do a great deal of, these days. (Sarah Palin has mastered doing both simultaneously.)