"It's an extraordinary moment -- kind of shocking and surreal," Todd told Lauer. "This statement by the president is going to be about the birth certificate, not about these changes - the announcement about the new defense secretary, Leon Panetta, and the new head of the CIA, David Petraeus."

A few seconds later, Obama walked into the briefing room - and began by complaining to Todd, sitting in the first row. "I was just back there listening to Chuck," the president said. "He was saying, 'It's amazing that he's not going to be talking about national security.' I would not have the networks breaking in if I was talking about that, Chuck, and you know it."

Sorry to contradict you on your birther day, Mr. President, but you're wrong. NBC had opted to go live with Obama's remarks because it had originally expected an announcement of his new national security team, now scheduled for Thursday.

Instead, Obama decided to draw the nation's attention to the conspiracy theory suggesting that he was not born in America. He was stooping to address this oft-disproved canard, he said, because the media had turned it into the nation's No. 1 news story.