Army judge removes “birther” aspect from court martial
According to CNN, Army judge Colonel Denise Lind removed “birther” aspects of the trial of Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, the Army flight surgeon who has refused to deploy to Afghanistan until the President proves to Lakin that the president is a US citizen.
A judge on Thursday denied a request for President Barack Obama to testify at a court martial for a U.S. Army flight surgeon who refused to deploy to Afghanistan until he saw proof that Obama was born in the United States.
The judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, said any evidence or witnesses related to Obama’s citizenship is irrelevant to the charges against Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, who has 17 years of service in the U.S. military.
Finally she ruled that a military court martial is not the forum in which to determine a president’s eligibility, because the Constitution says only Congress has the power to impeach and remove the president.
Yeah, this is getting a little too messy. Lakin needs to grow up and 1) go to jail, or 2) deploy. It’s making a mockery of military justice. I’m no lawyer but the judge seems to be stretching the law a bit to accommodate common sense.
Of course, this could all be settled if the President would have his birth certificate plastered to his forehead.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden
He should’ve picked a better offense for which to get court-martialed; e.g., an Art. 88 charge that could only be substantiated by release of the b. cert (of course, unless he’d annoyed people enough, it would’ve been dropped like the Black Panther case when that became apparent).
I think the judge was correct. This makes the trial focus on what Col. Lakin did or didn’t do, and not shift the focus to Obama (which would essentially have brought a President under Court Martial, I guess?)