Just when it seemed the controversy over President Obama's birthplace had been laid to rest, a group of Southern California "birthers" had a rare day in federal court Monday to make their case that the president isn't a natural-born American and should be removed from office.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted Buena Park minister Wiley Drake and leading birther litigator Orly Taitz a chance to challenge the summary dismissal of the case by a Santa Ana federal judge two years ago.
Unmoved by the release last week of Obama's official long-form birth certificate showing he was born in Honolulu, the birthers descended in force on the Pasadena federal courthouse, wielding fold-out displays of the president's identity documents they contend prove a lifelong pattern of covering up his foreign origins.
"Analysis shows it is not a true and correct image of his birth certificate but a creative computer image," Taitz insisted to the court, alleging that the Obama administration has pressured the legal system to squelch the truth. "He has created this psychological Kristallnacht," she said, referring to the Nazis' first orchestrated persecution of Jews in Germany.