NORMALLY I DISDAIN nut-case issues, because covering politics already provides me a steady diet of folly. But this "birther" baloney just keeps cookin', so I can't help but take a bite.

If you don't ingest right-wing blogs or the babble of cable TV "news," it's possible you're missing "birther mania."

It is, in a nutshell, re-energized claims that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen and therefore illegally serving as president.

Believers, I assume, also think the moon landing was faked, the Bush administration blew up the towers, and JFK and Elvis are alive.

We already know that Obama's the Antichrist, that he's a socialist out to take away our guns and euthanize the elderly, that he's a Manchurian candidate programmed to overthrow the government, and of course that he's a Muslim.

And it's no surprise, given what we know about Pennsylvania politics, that the first lawsuit (filed a year ago) to challenge Obama's citizenship came from a Pennsylvania lawyer - Phil Berg, of Lafayette Hill, Montgomery County.

We're ground zero of Birther Nation.

Berg, 65, is a Democrat who ran for governor in 1990, lieutenant governor in '94 and U.S. Senate in 2000, when he was "the people's candidate." (The people gave him 1.3 percent of the vote.)

These days he has three lawsuits in federal courts to "protect the Constitution for our forefathers." Last year he also sought injunctions to stop the General Election and Obama's Inauguration.

At least he doesn't think small.

His lawsuits say that the president is an illegal alien, real name Barry Soetoro, born in Mombasa, Kenya, a citizen of Indonesia; that birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers can't be verified, and that the birth certificate released by Obama last summer is a forgery.

"He's a total phony," Berg tells me. "This is the biggest hoax in the history of America."

I didn't ask him about the moon landing.

Berg's Web site is obamacrimes. com. He's so busy that he added a separate phone line for the news media. He's done 300-plus radio interviews. And he says that as Obama's approval ratings drop and public anger over health care grows,

"we're on a real uptick right now."

Legislation in Congress, sponsored by Republican Bill Posey of Florida (appropriately representing the "space coast" region of eastern Florida), would require presidential candidates to file birth certificates starting with the 2012 election.

Berg claims that the measure has no Democratic co-sponsors (10 Republicans signed on, six from Texas) because if it becomes law Obama would be busted when he tries to seek re-election.

It's in the Committee on House Administration, chaired by Philly Democrat Bobby Brady. See? We're the center of the birther universe.

Brady tells me that he has "no intention" of moving the measure, which he calls "stupid" and says exists solely as "an embarrassment tactic."

I'd note that the worldwide news media showed Obama's Hawaiian "certification of live birth" more than a year ago, and that the respected Annenberg Political Fact Check, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at Penn, proclaimed it legit and said, "Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he always said."

According to the certificate, that was Aug. 4, 1961, on the island of Oahu at 7:24 p.m., two years after Hawaii became our 50th state.

Berg dismisses this, as well as the notion that national and international news organizations looked closely at the issue, saying: "The media decided two years ago to have Obama as president."

Sorry, Phil, I don't buy it.

The news media, despite flaws and leanings, like a good story first and foremost. A serious presidential candidate not meeting constitutional requirements for office is too good a story to go untold, as would be stories of the moon, the towers, Elvis, etc.

But, folks, get used to this kind of stuff.

As bloggers and individuals' Web sites increasingly create information, and actual journalism continues its decline, nut-case "news" is bound to flourish - no matter where it's born.

Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.

For recent columns, go to

http://go.philly.com/baer.