It would be nice to think that Supreme Court order No. 08A407 would put to rest the Internet-driven conspiracy theories about the circumstances of Barack Obama's birth. Nice, but not realistic.

In Order No. 08A407, issued Monday morning, the court decided to not take up the case of Donofrio v. Wells, rejecting it without comment as it does with all but about 100 of the 7,000 petitions it considers each year. Thus, the Electoral College will be able to meet Dec. 15 as scheduled to formally elect Obama as president without waiting for the court to issue an opinion about whether Obama is a United States citizen.

In one way, it's heartening: Donofrio v. Wells means that no matter how wacky or specious a citizen's case may be, he has a right to ask the highest court in the land to hear it.

It's even more heartening, however, that the justices rejected the opportunity to hear the case. It means that grown-ups still are in charge, that law trumps emotion and that, despite the best efforts of the credulous fringe, the rest of us still live in the reality-based world.

Leo C. Donofrio of New Brunswick, N.J., originally had asked Nina Mitchell Wells, the New Jersey secretary of state, to postpone the Nov. 4 election on the grounds that neither Mr. Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, nor his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, was a "natural-born" citizen of the United States, as the criteria spelled out in the U.S. Constitution put it.

Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, and McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Donofrio claims that because Obama's father was a citizen of Kenya, a British colony in 1961, Obama was "a British citizen at birth."

Wells declined to stop the election; the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld her decision. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to take up Donofrio's request for a stay.

That should settle things, right? Not so fast. Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, Pa., whose federal fraud suit against Mr. Obama was thrown out of court in Pennsylvania, has asked the Supreme Court to hear his appeal. He claims the president-elect actually was born in Kenya; that he may, in fact, be a citizen of Indonesia; that his Hawaiian birth certificate is fraudulent.

All of these claims have been debunked by state officials, documents and fact-based media examinations, but true conspiracy crusaders are undaunted: Well, of course they debunk it; they're part of the conspiracy!

In the old days, such crusaders had only typewriters (usually with red-and-black ribbons) and the postal service to spread their message. Today, there are websites, blogs and pandering talk show hosts looking to pump up ratings by any means necessary.

Never mind reality; the truth is out there.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH.