OLYMPIA — Here's Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee's ruling on the challenge to Barack Obama's eligibility to be on the ballot that's mentioned in Sunday's Spin Control column.

Documents:

OLYMPIA — A trial judge quickly rejected an effort to keep President Barack Obama off Washington's general election ballot, saying such “birther” allegations have been around for years, and rejected for years as well.

Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee dismissed the challenge brought Monday by Linda Jordan of Seattle, who tried to block Secretary of State Sam Reed from putting Obama on the ballot, in part because she challenged the validity of his birth certificate. Jordan claimed Obama wasn't a “natural born citizen” as required by the U.S. Constitution.

McPhee devoted six pages of his opinion to dismantling Jordan's claims based on findings in other courts that rejected similar challenges. “I do not usually devote so much time quoting the decisions of other courts in other cases. I do so here to make the point that just as all thhe so-called evidcence offered by (Jordan) has been in the blogosphere for years, in one form or another, so too has all the law rejecting plaintiff's allegations. I can conceive of no reason why this lawsuit was brought, except to join the chorus of noise in that blogosphere.”

OLYMPIA — Barack Obama makes jokes about people who question his birth certificate, and his campaign even is selling a coffee mug with the presidential face on one side and a reproduction of the certificate on the other.

Mitt Romney tried to make a joke about birth certificates in Michigan last week. Some people laughed, some people didn't.

But Linda Jordan of Seattle apparently is not joking in court action filed this week in Thurston County Superior Court against the Washington secretary of state, asking the court to keep Obama off the November ballot because, she contends, his birth certificate is forged and he is not a “natural born citizen.”

The state Attorney General's office was also serious in its reply today that Jordan's lawsuit is flawed for several reasons, all of which could lead to its dismissal: It doesn't name Obama as a plaintiff; it's a federal issue, involving the U.S. Constitution; the secretary of state doesn't have the authority to check on the eligibility of candidates and toss one off if he or she doesn't measure up.

Beyond that, Deputy Solicitor General Jeff Even says in a court filing, Jordan doesn't provide any proof that Obama isn't a natural born citizen. “She merely claims to have offered evidence of a forged birth certificate — a birth certificate that has never been requested by or submitted to, the secretary of state — and to have offered additional suspicions regarding a social security number.”

Hearing tomorrow afternoon before Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee. Some pertinent documents are “submitted for your approval,” as Rod Serling used to say.

Documents:

It was with some regret that I heard Wednesday morning that President Obama has released his birth certificate. There is no issue that is better for generating comments for this website than whether Obama was born in the USA, and I am sad to see it go.

The “birther” controversy, as  it is often called, even has a special connection to the Inland Northwest vortex, that inescapable force of nature that connects national and international news events to our area. It was in Moscow, Idaho, after all, that Orly Taitz confronted Chief Justice John Roberts about her legal challenge to Obama's eligibililty to be president…

(To read the rest of this post, click here to go inside the blog.)

OK, this is getting strange, in an “Art imitates life imitates art” kind of way. Doonesbury’s network correspondent Roland Hedley began tweeting on the Obama birth certificate “controversy” last night.

Here are his tweets, in reverse chron order:

Tomorrow: 9-part tweetage on Birther movement. Was POTUS really born in Hawaii, and if so, is Hawaii a real state? You decide.
about 14 hours ago from web

FYI, no dog in fight, just report. Still historic if it turns out POTUS is our first Kenyan president.
about 14 hours ago from web

Breaking rumor we’re working on: Hawaii cooked numbers on application for statehood. Still a colony? You’ll get to decide.
about 14 hours ago from web

Car-pooled to Fight Club with Lou Dobbs, two Birthers and a Teabagger. Always good to get fresh perspectives.
about 2 hours ago from web

Follow his tweets here.

The Obama Birth Certificate “controversy” is getting more and more attention from the news media this summer. Apparently they have run out of stories telling people that Michael Jackson is still dead.

So much attention, in fact, that Jon Stewart weighed in last nigh, with clips of Lou Dobbs, Orly Taitz, Chris Matthews.

Wonder which way he comes down on the issue? click to see.