Berg v. Obama Update -- Wednesday, August 27

Dissecting, and Refuting, Philip Berg's Perjury Claim

In addition to his argument that Barack Obama may never have reinstated his U.S. citizenship after being adopted by Indonesian step-father Lolo Soetoro--and therefore could not maintain dual Indonesian-American citizenship due to laws on the books at the time--Philip Berg made available a copy of his Illinois Attorney's Registration and Disciplinary Record and suggested that his failure and refusal to list "Barry Soetoro," the name under which he registered for his school in Indonesia (he also registered as an Indonesian citizen and a Muslim), amounts to perjury.

The record clearly shows that Obama listed "none" in the field Berg purports to be reserved for any former names used by the attorney in question.

There's a problem, however.

According to the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois, the "full former name(s)" field is reserved for names which have previously appeared on the Illinois Master Roll of Attorneys and is NOT meant to include any names adoption prior to obtaining a license to practice law in Illinois.

A telephone call to the ARDC's offices confirmed that particular interpretation of the information on the commission's Web site.

Therefore, the only way that Barack Hussein Obama's Attorney Registration form would include the names "Barry Soetoro" and "Barry Dunham" would be if he originally became licensed to practice law in Illinois under those names and changed it through the ARDC afterward. For example, Michelle Obama's Attorney Registration information clearly shows her maiden name, Michelle Lavaughn Robinson, in the "full former name(s)" field. So, according to the ARDC, I think it is fair to say that Barack Obama was under no obligation to include any other names on his registration form.

"If that truly is the case," said Philip Berg when I called him this afternoon, "then I could be wrong on this particular issue. Unless the instructions weren't clear as to how to fill out the form."

By employing that caveat, I'm guessing that he could possibly push a "reasonable person" standard in pursuing this aspect of his action, claiming that if a reasonable person filling out those forms would be inclined to put all former names in that field--as opposed to only those names under which they've practiced law--then Obama would have had to do the same. Again, I'm guessing here, as I do not know if the reasonable person standard has any place in perjury claims. I may be many things, but I am no T.J. Hooper.

I did not have to guess, however, when it came to Berg's optimism about the potential outcome for the action as a whole.

"We still feel that we're right, and the evidence will come out that [Obama] is not eligible to be president," Berg said. "We've been fielding so much information and getting so many telephone calls. We've had millions of hits on our Web site. We've received phone calls and e-mails from lawyers, from immigration officials, and we do feel as though things are going to break open."

Personally, I believe the perjury claim to be poorly founded, hastily researched, and off-base. Still, the other issues raised by Berg in his civil action have yet to be addressed in such a matter -- even the certificate of live birth which has been both authenticated and deemed a forgery lacks such vital, credibility boosting information as the hospital's name and Barack's birthweight. Consider that only two years ago when my daughter was born, we had a partially hand-written hospital copy birth certificate--the original stayed with the hospital--showing not only the hospital's name but also her birthweight of five pounds, five ounces (she was six weeks early); perhaps, in the interest of being forthright and putting such claims to rest, Barack Obama could provide the same.

Point being, while this obviously lacking perjury claim has been all but shown to be ill-founded, I feel as though we are still constitutionally obligated as Americans to pursue debate about the rest of these claims until each can be proven the same or otherwise. And, again, this has little to do with the Illinois senator himself -- I would suggest the exact same thing if the subject of the allegations were John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, or anybody else for that matter. This is not simply a job in the mailroom of the Department of the Interior or handing out parking tickets on Capitol Hill -- this is the presidency of the United States of America. Our founding fathers wanted to be absolutely positive that the person to lead this country had undivided loyalty to Her, and we should do everything in our power to honor their intentions.

All that being said, a little update on the progression of the lawsuit:

According to the District Court's Web site, the U.S. Attorney's Office has accepted service on behalf of the Federal Election Commission and, curiously enough, the Democratic National Committee as well.

"I'm not sure I understand why, either" said Berg of the U.S. Attorney's Office's acceptance of service on behalf of the DNC.

Regardless, service of those two parties has been made, and answers from both are due on October 21. Barack Obama still remains to be served.