Birtherism wears its crazy on its sleeve. For one thing, the demand that Barack Obama produce his birth certificate did not reach anything close to its crescendo until months after Obama had already posted his birth certificate to the internet. And, of course, there's the crazy incarnate of Orly Taitz. So you can be forgiven for not knowing of the craziness embodied in the actual lawsuit that was thrown of of court in Orange County at the end of October. Fortunately, that craziness is captured in the 30-page decision (pdf) itself, perhaps the calmest document you might ever chance to read that is written in response to batshit insanity.
But you don't have to read the entire 30-page document. Just a few paragraphs from the very end should suffice quite nicely. The sad fact is (sad for comedians, at least), the judge threw the case out on procedural grounds, so there was no full bore circus with phony birth certificates and the like. And in the end the judge addresses the plaintiff's impatience with him for actually following the law and respecting constitutional separation of powers-as opposed tobuying into their free-flowing interpretation of the law as always serving their immediate needs.
But if you do skip to the end (as you can by jumping to the section "The Grand Finale"), then you'll miss half the fun (yeah, I'm a non-lawyer who thinks reading judicial decisions can be fun), such as when the Judge, David O. Carter, explains that the plaintiffs "seek a complete shutdown of the government by enjoining it from acting while holding a new presidential election," that "Plaintiffs have inappropriately requested that this Court interfere with internal military affairs," that they seek "to emasculate the military." Hmmm. Trying to make the country ungovernable and bring it to the point of total collapse, leaving it utterly defenseless. Sound like any political party you know?
