11/09/2008Fight To Reveal Obama's Birth Certificate Continues By John P. Connolly, The Bulletin
Two of the plaintiffs in court cases against Sen. Barack Obama, the president-elect, are working to move their cases forward before his presidential inauguration.

Philip J. Berg, the attorney who filed suit against Mr. Obama challenging him to produce his original birth certificate to prove he meets the constitutional requirements to serve as U.S. president. Mr. Berg filed a Writ of Certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court late in October, in an effort to force Mr. Obama to produce the document.

Accordingly, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that Mr. Obama, the DNC and all co-defendants are to respond to the writ, on or before Dec. 1.

The judge in Mr. Berg's original case ruled that Mr. Berg does not have standing to enforce the constitutional requirements on a presidential candidate. Mr. Berg appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

"I look forward to receiving defendant Obama's response to the writ and am hopeful the U. S. Supreme Court will review Berg v. Obama. I believe Mr. Obama is not a constitutionally-qualified natural-born citizen and is ineligible to assume the office of President of the United States."

Mr. Obama put an electronic photo of a birth certification on his "Fight the Smears" Web site, a document that his critics have found unconvincing. The raised seal and authoritative signature needed to validate the document cannot be seen on the scan. The Obama campaign was unwilling to release the original document to the court when Mr. Berg filed suit in August, choosing instead to argue against Mr. Berg's standing.

Mr. Berg asserts that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya, as his mother, Ann Dunham, was denied entry to the plane home due to her advanced pregnancy. Since she was only 18 at the time of Mr. Obama's birth, she would not have passed citizenship on to Mr. Obama. In 1961, citizenship could only be passed on to a child where one parent was an alien should the citizen parent have resided in the U.S. for 10 years, five of those over the age of 14.

The State of Hawaii has refused to release copies of Mr. Obama's birth certificate, because Department of Health officials say the privacy statutes of the state prevent them from doing so to anyone who does not have a "direct and tangible interest" in the record as prescribed in the state statute.

In Honolulu, Andy Martin, a longtime critic of Mr. Obama, filed a lawsuit in October, in an attempt to get the Hawaiian Department of Health to release Mr. Obama's birth certificate records. Mr. Martin announced last week that he plans to get members of the Electoral College to pressure Mr. Obama into presenting his birth certificate.

"We are going to start organizing a 'Goal Line Stand' in the Electoral College to force Barack Obama to produce his original 1961 birth certificate for review by the American people," Mr. Martin said. "Republicans, conservatives and independents have a new rallying point. Don't let Obama pass through the Electoral College until he has produced his original birth certificate and ended the mystery shrouding his origins."

No one, aside from Department of Health officials, has seen the original document. Mr. Martin has a court hearing on Nov. 18 in the Circuit Court for Honolulu, Hawaii to continue his case.

John P. Connolly can be reached at jconnolly@thebulletin.us
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