Obama Can Be President, Says Supreme Court

I confess, I sometimes feel twinges of utterly unironic and unnuanced love of country when our Supreme Court actually considers even for a second this sort of wackiness:

The Supreme Court turned down an emergency appeal Monday from a New Jersey man who claimed that President-elect Barack Obama was not a "natural born citizen" and therefore was ineligible to become president.

The setback is the latest for a small group of persistent litigants who want the courts to block Obama from taking office. So far, none of these plaintiffs has convinced any judge that Obama's assertion that he was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, is incorrect.

……Leo Donofrio, a retired lawyer from East Brunswick, N.J., contended that Obama was ineligible to be president because his father was from Kenya. In October he sued New Jersey's secretary of state, arguing that both Obama and Sen. John McCain should be removed from the state ballot because neither was a natural born citizen.

…………

Donofrio said Obama should "be required to prove … he was born in Hawaii. … Even if it were proved he was born in Hawaii, Sen. Obama's father was born in Kenya, and therefore, having been born with split and competing loyalties, candidate Obama is not a 'natural born citizen.' "

In Monday's order, the court said it had denied Donofrio's request for a stay.

……Still pending at the high court is an appeal petition claiming Obama was born in Kenya. Hawaii's Health Department and its registrar of vital statistics have determined he was born in Hawaii.

Dave Weigel with some earlier Obama conspiracy watching.