Obama’s birth certificate

last updated 8 January 2015

It’s time to celebrate a “new American political tradition,” said David Weigel in Slate. “The quadrennial early-winter attempt to overturn presidential results by any means necessary.” This time around, there’s a fringe movement determined to prove that Barack Obama is ineligible to be president. The Supreme Court on Friday is considering whether to hear a lawsuit challenging Obama’s status as a "natural-born" citizen.

It’s too bad this “kerfuffle” won’t just go away, said Ed Morrissey in Hot Air. The state of Hawaii has emphatically confirmed that Obama’s Hawaii birth certificate is legitimate, so he clearly wasn’t born in his father’s home country, Kenya, or someplace else. Fortunately, the justices will almost surely kill the lawsuit. Unfortunately, nothing the Supreme Court does will kill the conspiracy theories.

Look, there’s “reasonable doubt on the issue,” said Erick Erickson in the blog RedState. And now that Clarence Thomas has referred the matter to whole court—after David Souter rejected it—it’s “making legitimate headlines.” But this whole issue is a big distraction. “Does anyone really, really think the Supreme Court is going to throw Obama out of office “after over 50 percent of the nation voted to elect him? That will not happen.”