That Birth Certificate Thing Just Won't Go Away

Remember that whole kerfuffle about Obama's birth certificate?  His real birth certificate remained hidden, so things were essentially dead in the water once the election was over.  At the time, there were a number of lawsuits filed to force that documentation out into the open (no, the real document was NOT produced already...!), but the highest profile one was from Phillip Berg, a former District Attorney.  It also happens that Berg is kind of known for being given to conspiracy theories, which didn't help the suit at all.

Now, the stakes have been raised by an even more high-profile lawsuit.  From Hillbuzz:

The issue is not whether Obama was born in Hawaii or not — the issue is whether, in 1961, at the time of his birth, he became a "natural born US citizen". His mother was 18 at the time, and his father was not a US citizen. Under the governing law, as many understand it, Obama's mother was too young to automatically pass on US citizenship to her son at the time of his birth. She needed to be 21 to do that, but was only 18. Thus, the argument being made is that Obama is not eligible to take the oath of office in January and become president because he is only a naturalized US citizen, not a natural-born US citizen.

Alan Keyes is the most high-profile person to get involved in this so far — and has now filed suit to demand proof Obama is eligible to take the oath of office before California awards him its electoral votes.

This can all be cleared up in one day if the Obama camp would cooperated and prove once and for all he is a natural-born, and not naturalized, US citizen. One day, and all of this could be cleared up and we can all move on and there would be no need for Alan Keyes to file any lawsuits.

Why doesn't the Obama camp and the DNC just cooperate and get this all over with?

That is the key question!  If there were no problems with the documentation, why didn't Obama just pony up months ago when the issue first came up?  Why doesn't he pony up now?  Even if everything is legally in order, this looks terribly suspicious.  Obama could end all the speculation, conspiracy theories, and lawsuits by producing his real documentation, but he hasn't.

Why not?  What is he hiding?

Once again, I doubt that much of anything will come of this, but the persistence of ever more credible people is something that simply cannot be ignored.  I think it all boils down to timing - if the electoral votes are cast, it'll probably be too late; certainly, once Obama gets into office, he can probably kill any efforts at unearthing this documentation.  If Keyes' suit bears fruit soon, however, the landscape changes a great deal.

I'll keep you up to date!

There's my two cents.