Obama's Citizenship: Case Closed? Not Yet

Please let us move on and never speak again of this absurd lawsuit dismissed by the Supreme Court Monday questioning Barack Obama's citizenship.

In case you haven't been paying attention to news of the mortgage crisis, the Wall Street meltdown, the collapse of the U.S. auto industry, skyrocketing unemployment, foreign war, global terrorism concerns, we have more serious concerns. ...

The suit, filed by New Jersey gadfly Leo Donofrio, "reasoned" that since Obama had dual nationality at birth - his mother was American and his Kenyan father at the time was a British subject - he cannot possibly be a "natural born citizen," one of the requirements the Constitution lists for eligibility to be president.

To be fair, Donofrio made the same argument against GOP presidential nominee John McCain. But the larger question is why do we need to spend one second of attention on such a spurious argument when our country is facing such peril.

Desperate is the best way to characterize the reasoning behind the lawsuit which somehow managed to get all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before being tossed in the garbage.

Shouldn't a lower court have done the same thing a long time ago?

The bottom line is that the suit attempted to do what neither Team Clinton could do during the Democratic primaries and what John McCain and the GOP could do during the general election – derail Obama's destiny to lead this country out of its current pathetic state.

Only time will tell whether he is ultimately successful. But it is certain he will get his chance.

The conservative crazies behind this line of argument are trying to use the courts to subvert the people's will expressed at the ballot box on Election Day.

Unfortunately we will all have to deal with this one more time. A Pennsylvania man is pursuing a court challenge to Obama's presidency claiming the president-elect was born in Kenya and not Hawaii as both he and Hawaii officials confirmed.

Hopefully, that will be the last silly challenge we have to stand. So let the stupid tricks end and let Obama have his chance to govern.

If you don't like Obama, that's fine.

Attack his agenda, attack his appointments, attack his ideas.

That's all a fair part of the political game. But attacking his parentage is out of bounds. Remember, few things in life will earn you bruised feelings and perhaps a bruised nose faster than attacking the ancestry of a black man.

+ The Shallow Obama Birth Certificate Challenge

_________________

Paul Shepard blogs the Democrat side of politics for BlackVoices. He has been a journalist for 16 years; on the national urban/minority affairs beat for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and for The AP in Washington, D.C.