You said — “Why wouldn’t Obama simply settle this by producing a a birth certificate for $12.50?”
I would say that he wants to “thumb his nose” at a certain segment of the right side of the political spectrum and let them “spin their wheels” for a long time, sidelining them from anything meaningful in regular political circles — and marginalizing them...
That sounds like his political plan — especially in light of Chief Editor Korir, over at API (African Press International) who said he had the tape from Obama’s wife, saying that Obama was not born in the U.S. — and then later (after a lot of people were clamoring to get it released), Korir basically told everyone it was a hoax and that he did it to *punish stupid people* for believing such an outlandish story. It’s called the Dark Socratic methodology and ole Chief Editor Korir carried that right along.
And, by the way, Berg was even Chief Editor Korir’s lawyer in the U.S. for a while, until he realized that he had been *hoaxed* too. And Ed Hale (of that Internet radio program) was also sucked into that hoax...
So, hucksters are able to pull in a lot of people (and even people here on Free Republic) with the kinds of “conspiracy minded thinking” that is going on...
He has several attorneys working on this. This is an expensive way to “thumb his nose”.