Surrick ruled that Berg lacked standing to bring the case, saying any harm from an allegedly ineligible candidate was "too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters."
As I said in my "about" section, I almost became a lawyer, and rulings like this were the reason that I realized that a career in the legal profession was not for me. I rebelled against my family's recommendations and wanted nothing to do with the law because it is irrational, corrupt by design and arbitrated by people who overwhelmingly tend to be political hacks. Everyday that I curse my current situation, I do so with an unsaid "thank God" that I had the good sense to major in Computer Science. Enough about me, this just happens to be a subject that leads to some pretty hostile and intense bitterness on my part when it comes up.
From a logical standpoint, the judge probably simply made this ruling up out of thin air. As Vox Day rightly pointed out, if a registered voter doesn't have a meaningful legal standing in a case like this, then no one would. It would have been interesting to see if John McCain or a third party candidate would have fared any better, since they would have the additional claim of actually running against someone who quite possibly had no legitimate right to be competing for the support of the electorate. The result would probably be the same. It'll be interesting to see if the Republicans ever try to run Schwartzenegger and use Berg v. Obama as a precedent to demolish the arguments against him.
All in all, this is mind-numbing sophistry, and it serves to illustrate the fact that in the real world, the legal profession is often barely anything more than a secular priesthood. Like priests, they waste valuable amounts of time pouring over the most insignificant points and shades of meaning and fill the gaps with their own opinions. Additionally, like priests, they are often a pox on the area of society they ostensibly serve. Cases like this prove that the only difference between the arbitrary "justice" of a mob and the "justice" of a government judiciary is the thin veneer of respectability that comes from pondersome deliberation and a 500 page ruling that could be summed up as "lynch the son of a bitch."
Stuff like this makes a government agent's bleatings about the 'rule of law' sound pretty hollow. For if the government itself sets asides its own rules if and when it wants, that's pretty much absolutism in my book.
Our government lacks more and more legitimate authority each and every day. Really all the authority it has left is that government has bigger guns and more of them. Pretty crappy basis for a free society, dontha think?
I served on a jury once. That was enough to permanently dissuade me from pursuing anything in the legal arena.
Things are going to have to get much worse now before they get better; John and Jane Q. Public aren't concerned until the cable reception doesn't come in and the supermarket has no food.
The Courts and the Media - thuggery on both parts.
I only wonder when the Court will agree that The Media has enough standing to insist upon faked-up poll numbers as sufficiently valid as "proof of evidence" for a winning candidate.
I'm not surprised Berg lost. The people must have The One, and no legal technicality is going to stand in his way.
McCain couldn't sue Obama regarding his place of birth as McCain suffers from the same problem having been born in Panama ... serious questions about eligibility.
Who cares? Nobody pays attention to that god damned piece of paper anyhow. Arnold should run. Who's gonna stop him? Nobody has standing.
So who are you voting for Nov. 4th? Coke or Pepsi?