A federal judge in Philadelphia last night threw out a complaint by a Montgomery County lawyer who claimed that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was not qualified to be president and that his name should be removed from the Nov. 4 ballot.
Philip J. Berg alleged in a complaint filed in federal district court on Aug. 21 against Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya.
Berg claimed that the Democratic presidential standardbearer is not even an American citizen but a citizen of Indonesia and therefore ineligible to be president.
He alleged that if Obama was permitted to run for president and subsequently found to be ineligible, he and other voters would be disenfranchised.
U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick had denied Berg's request for a temporary restraining order on Aug. 22 but had not ruled on the merits of the suit until yesterday.
Obama and the Democratic National Committee had asked Surrick to dismiss Berg's complaint in a court filing on Sept. 24.
They said that Berg's claims were "ridiculous" and "patently false," that Berg had "no standing" to challenge the qualifications of a candidate for president because he had not shown the requisite harm to himself.
Surrick agreed.
In a 34-page memorandum and opinion, the judge said Berg's allegations of harm were "too vague and too attenuated" to confer standing on him or any other voters.
Surrick ruled that Berg's attempts to use certain laws to gain standing to pursue his claim that Obama was not a natural-born citizen were "frivolous and not worthy of discussion."
The judge also said the harm Berg alleged did "not constitute an injury in fact" and Berg's arguments to the contrary "ventured into the unreasonable."
For example, Berg had claimed that Obama's nomination deprived citizens of voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton in November. (Berg backed Clinton in the primaries.)
Berg could not be reached for comment last night.
Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, and the campaign posted a document issued by Hawaii on its Web site, fight thesmears.com, confirming his birth there.
Berg said in court papers that the image was a forgery.
The nonpartisan Web site FactCheck.org examined the original document and said it was legitimate.
Further, a birth announcement in the Aug. 13, 1961, Honolulu Advertiser listed Obama's birth there on Aug. 4. *
posted on October 25, 2008 07:53:45 PM new
I can't believe this...I thought surely that if bear posted this...it was a FACT. I am sorry Bear, maybe another smear might work better. LOL
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A poll is not a prediction. It is a snapshot of how people are thinking right now.
posted on October 26, 2008 01:24:05 AM new
Helen, the harm has been done.. Soft-skinned or not, a EO poster dared to come over to the RT, posted relevant remarks, which opened new discussion points, was treated civilly by a number of posters with relevant concerns. They congratulated themselves on meaningful discussion without name-calling. Then you came along and destroyed it. Shame on you.
[ edited by pixiamom on Oct 26, 2008 05:04 AM ]
posted on October 26, 2008 06:01:28 AM new
Pixiamom,
My first notice of maybedee was in 2004 when she came to announce her support of Bush after his second election. I guess I made the mistake of assuming that since that time she would have familiarized herself with the posters here and as a returning poster treat every poster here as respectfully as the posters here treated her. If you notice, you will see that it was not until she critized the language of one of the most informed and highly regarded member of this group as being obscene that I chose to voice my opinion.
Although I don't believe that she is the delicate flower that you suppose she is or that she left only because of my silly remark, I have made it clear that she doesn't need to worry about a response from me if she should choose to return.
BTW....Maybedee made one brief remark on this board in 2004 and then left until her return this week. So maybe, someday soon, Maybedee will return again, for your pleasure.
