Supreme Court to Consider Obama Citizenship?

So it appears that the Supreme Court will consider whether to accept a case challenging the citizenship of Barack Obama – and by proxy, his eligibility to serve as President of the United States. By now, everyone is pretty familiar with the president-elect’s background: son of a Kenyan man and a Kansan woman, born in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia and the Midwest.

Well, it appears that some conservative conspiracy theorists are not yet ready to concede the election. The case on the Supreme Court’s docket (the justices will decide tomorrow whether they will hear it) is one of many that feature various claims like President-elect Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate is a forgery, or he denounced his U.S. citizenship while living in Indonesia. All of this is, of course, a way to keep our newly elected president out of the White House – the Constitution reads that you must be a “naturally born citizen” to take the highest office.

The Supreme Court declined to hear a case in August, which attempted to prevent the Democratic National Committee from nominating Barack Obama by questioning his citizenship. The court sided with a lower-court’s dismissal of the case because the man who filed it “lacked standing.” It remains unclear whether the justices will agree to hear this most recent case or not.

Interestingly enough, Sen. John McCain was not born within the natural boundaries of the United States. He was born on a military base in Panama. But, as some of you may recall, the Democratic-controlled Congress unanimously passed a resolution saying that he was eligible to run for the presidency. Now conservative activists don’t seem interested in sharing the courtesy. Nothing like being gracious losers, eh?

Update (12/05/08, 3:35pm): The Supreme Court released two orders today, neither of which dealt with this particular case. We will keep you updated if any new developments arise.