C'mon Oceander, aren't you tired of the Missouri brouhaha? On this one, if one can ignore the frivolity of the various court cases, some of the issues make for interesting if less than challenging discussion. 
Sometimes I get tired of debates concerning angels, dancing, and the heads of pins. And this is the mother of them all.
Let's assume, arguendo, that Obama really wasn't eligible. What then? Suppose some well-intentioned court were to decide that he was ineligible; what remedy would it order? Would it order that, with respect to the particular plaintiff, every action taken by Obama - and thus every bill enacted into law during the past 5-1/2 years - was void? Given the rule of precedent, and how it doesn't bind sister courts, that would lead to a bizarre patchwork where people in some court districts in the US would be absolutely free of any federal executive or legislative action taken since Jan. 21, 2009, while people in other court districts would still be fully bound.
So it gets up to the S.Court toot-sweet - circuit splits and whatnot as well as an unholy constitutional mess. What is the Supreme Court going to do? Is it going to agree that Obama is ineligible and that, therefore, every executive and legislative action since Jan. 21, 2009 is void? Even just straightening out the tax mess alone would be herculean - refund suits for taxes paid that should never have been levied in the first place (so, presumably, the statute of limitations on refunds wouldn't apply), and deficiencies based on deductions or exemptions that were granted but shouldn't have been.
To me this is one where you simply cut to the chase: eligibility is a "political question" the resolution of which is left in the sole custody of the legislative and executive branches. But the executive has consistently argued his eligibility and the legislative has never gainsaid eligibility - in point of fact, in the current miasma of impeachment chatter, ineligibility would be about the only really serious impeachable offense here. As such, the Court would, I think, conclude that the question of Obama's eligibility, as a matter of constitutional jurisprudence, has to be answered in the affirmative: Obama is eligible because his eligibility has not been successfully challenged or gainsaid in the only fora in which it could be. Ergo, any lower court holding that Obama was ineligible would have to be reversed and any remedial awards undone.
The only real interesting question for me on this point is this: when and how could we get a bipartisan consensus that it is time to remove this antediluvian appendix from the constitutional body politic through an appropriate amendment?
