Philip Berg is an inexplicably still-licensed lawyer who a couple of months ago filed a lawsuit against Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee claiming that Obama is not constitutionally qualified for the presidency because he was born in Kenya. Berg (no relation, thank you very much) first sought an emergency order from the Philadelphia court which would have prevented Obama from accepting the Democratic nomination. Because the request was based on total nonsense, no evidence and idiot conspiracy theories, that request was promptly denied.
Berg later served written requests for admissions on Obama. Obama and the DNC ignored them. Having failed to respond, Berg began promoting the notion that by their silence, Obama and the DNC admitted all of his allegations:
Philip J. Berg, Esquire, the Attorney who filed suit against Barack H. Obama challenging Senator Obama’s lack of “qualifications” to serve as President of the United States, announced today that Obama and tbe DNC “ADMITTED”, by way of failure to timely respond to Requests for Admissions, all of the numerous specific requests in the Federal lawsuit. Obama is “NOT QUALIFIED” to be President and therefore Obama must immediately withdraw his candidacy for President and the DNC shall substitute a qualified candidate.
Now, Obama-haters on the internet and on talk radio have begun repeating this nonsense. Here are some talk radio hosts giddy with the idea that they’ve got Obama and the DNC against the wall with Berg’s lawsuit:
Sadly for Berg, Limbaugh, Savage, Liddy and the others, the case last night reached its inevitable conclusion:
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s qualifications to be president.
U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick on Friday night rejected the suit by attorney Philip J. Berg, who alleged that Obama was not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible for the presidency. Berg claimed that Obama is either a citizen of his father’s native Kenya or became a citizen of Indonesia after he moved there as a boy.
Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father. His parents divorced and his mother married an Indonesian man.
Internet-fueled conspiracy theories question whether Obama is a “natural-born citizen” as required by the Constitution for a presidential candidate and whether he lost his citizenship while living abroad.
Surrick ruled that Berg lacked standing to bring the case, saying any harm from an allegedly ineligible candidate was “too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters.”
Next up: Obama’s trip to Hawaii must have had something to do with the ruling.
Update:
Berg says he’s “immediately” appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. That should come as something of a surprise to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the only body with jurisdiction to hear it.
Handled right, the Fed District Court throwing out Berg for lack of standing can present a political check-mate “win” on appeal for the anti-Obama side (if not in law, in the Court of Public Opinion). Here’s how: SIMPLY SPREAD AROUND OBAMA’S APPELLATE BRIEF HAVING TO ARGUE AGAINST AN AMERICAN VOTER’S RIGHT TO RAISE THE QUESTION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. Should be a PR disaster for the Dems and Obama!!!