This editorial appeared in The Tri-City Herald.

To the list of crackpots and ignoramuses who populate the political spectrum, add the those who still doubt – or at least, say they do – Barack Obama's credentials to be president.

One such group found a lawyer and filed a case in court to keep Washington's members of the Electoral College from casting their votes for Obama, even though he won the state by 17 percentage points.

And the state Supreme Court, populated by at least one kindred spirit, has decided to hear the case en banc (that means all of them) rather than just toss it out as would be the usual course.

But the electors voted Monday, so it seems the court at least recognizes that no emergency exists.

This matter, you see, already has been dealt with in the U.S. Supreme Court, quite effectively.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected without comment an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who said the president-elect is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.

He was not, of course, unless the Hawaiian Islands were seized by the ghost of Horatio Hornblower while the world slept.

That's where Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961. It's in the state's official record of vital statistics. It was in the newspaper.

But befuddled bloggers have confused Obama's father's citizenship with his while ignoring his mother's citizenship or the place of his birth.

Not born in the United States? That's baloney.

To read the complete editorial, visit The Tri-City Herald.