United States District Judge James Robertson has thrown out a lawsuit that was challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to be president. The Associated Press report from Nedra Pickler is here, and the PDF with his ruling is here. The ruling might be correct in legal terms, but the opinions he expresses show that he lacks intellectual curiousity and integrity.
From the PDF:
This case, if it were allowed to proceed, would deserve mention in one of those books that seek to prove that the law is foolish or that America has too many lawyers with not enough to do. Even in its relatively short life the case has excited the blogosphere and the conspiracy theorists. The right thing to do is to bring it to an early end... ...The issue of the President's citizenship was raised, vetted, blogged, texted, twittered, and otherwise massaged by America’s vigilant citizenry during Mr. Obama’s two-year-campaign for the presidency, but this plaintiff wants it resolved by a court.
1. No judge should use a loaded and pejorative term like "conspiracy theorists", especially since some "conspiracy theories" have later proved to be founded in fact. In fact, if you described this scheme to most people who hadn't heard of it they'd probably think it was fiction, yet it's true.
2. In his laundry list, James Robertson forgets to mention that the birth certificate side of things has been constantly lied about; see the Obama citizenship page for all the details and a list of some of those who've lied about that issue. That doesn't mean that Obama isn't a natural born citizen. It does mean, however, that an intellectually honest judge should take that into account. If he's not aware of how that issue has been lied about, then he isn't qualified to write such a statement.
His bio is here: dcd.uscourts.gov/robertson-bio.html. He's a Bill Clinton appointee who co-chaired the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Obama was a member of the Chicago branch of that organization. Looking into whether they could have crossed paths is left as an exercise.
He also worked for Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, now known as Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr or WilmerHale. Jamie Gorelick is currently a partner there, and some from that firm have been appointed to the Obama administration (link, link).
There are several excerpts from news articles about him here, and more on him here, ending with:
Judge Robertson was responsible for dropping two charges against Clintonista and Friend of Hillary, Web Hubbell. "Don't be surprised if Democrats win the White House one of their nominations to the Supreme Court is Judge James Robertson. Don't be surprised, " said Sid Francis.
At some point, he served as president of Southern Africa Legal Services and Legal Education Project, Inc. (sals.org) That group was founded in 1979; shortly after that time Obama was active in the apartheid movement. Seeing whether he and Robertson could have crossed paths at that time is left to the reader.
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