Supreme Court Disses Obama Citizenship Lawsuit

Filed under No Surprises Here

(AP) The Supreme Court this morning unceremoniously declined to hear an emergency appeal from a man who claimed President-elect Barack Obama is not qualified for the presidency because he is not a "natural-born" citizen.

The court without comment declined to hear "Donofrio v. Wells," a suit that had attempted to keep Obama off the New Jersey ballot. Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick had claimed Obama had dual nationality at birth, because of his Kansas-born mother and his Kenyan-born father, who was a British subject at the time.

Just to be nonpartisan about it, Donofrio also contended that Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Socialist Workers candidate Roger Calero also were not natural-born citizens and should have been kept off the ballot.

The case had little chance at the high court, but became the subject of a tremendous amount of speculation and debate on ideological political blogs.

Right-wing blogs were outraged when Justice David H. Souter denied Donofrio's petition for an injunction, and left-wing blogs smelled trouble when Justice Clarence Thomas referred the matter to the full court for consideration.

In fact, both were routine procedures, as the court's action today shows. There were no recorded dissents to the decision dismissing the case.

This hardly means the lawsuits are over. There are two other cases at the Supreme Court, neither of which has been scheduled for consideration. The most celebrated is filed by Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, Pa. There are others still at lower court levels.

Berg argues that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as Obama has said and Hawaii officials confirm. Alternately, Berg argues that Obama may have renounced his citizenship as a boy in Indonesia, where he lived for a time with his mother and stepfather.

Those supporting Berg do not believe a birth certificate Obama's campaign has produced.

Factcheck.org has done an independent investigation of the controversy.

"FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate," the group writes. "We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship.... Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said."