Justice has been served, thankfully. Conspiracy theorists in the US have been pursuing lawsuits challenging Barack Obama's citizenship, but the US Supreme Court has just dismissed one of these lawsuits.
As you all know, one of the criteria to be President of the United States is that the candidate must be a natural-born citizen. This is one of the main things that has kept Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from running for the position (because he was born in Austria).
To be fair, the lawsuit also claimed that John McCain is not a natural born citizen (as he was born in Panama), but that doesn't make this any less ridiculous. Obama has produced a birth certificate, the Secretary of State for Hawaii has vouched for him, and there is even a birth announcement in the Hawaiian paper from when Obama was born. Still, Leo Donofrio and Phillip Berg were pursuing two separate lawsuits challenging the validity of Obama's citizenship.
There was a lot of political bickering when Justice Clarence Thomas of SCOTUS referred Donofrio's case to the whole court for a conference. There were allegations that he did so because of Democratic opposition to his candidacy. However, I think he did the right thing in this case. By allowing the full court to decide to dismiss this case, it gives it an air of non-partisanship and refutes the inevitable allegations of political influence.
Berg's lawsuit is still making its way through the system, but Donofrio's has been dismissed by SCOTUS. The absurd claims are likely politically motivated and appears to be a waste of judicial resources. Now hopefully the court can get on to more important issues.
[Source: Washington Post]
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