Carl Hulse at the New York Times is trying to raise doubts about John McCain's eligibility to be president, based on his birth in the Panama Canal Zone.
The U.S. Constitution does say that "No person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President."
While McCain was born outside the boundaries of the United States, he was born to two U.S. citizens. The law does, however, pretty much clear up this question in 8 USC 1401:
(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person
If being born outside the boundaries of the U.S. meant that citizens weren't considered "natural born," there would be a host of children born overseas to U.S. service men and women who were considered ineligible for the presidency. Having been a serviceman who has served overseas for several years, I can tell you that no one considers this to be the case.
The Constitutional provision requiring the president to be "natural born" was intended to prevent foreign-born persons, who might have national or ethnic ties or loyalties, from ascending to the helm of our nation. It was not intended to prohibit children from growing up to become president, who would in every other way than the location of their birth be fully recognized as natural American citizens.
I'm no McCain fan, but this is silly. Our "mainstream" media insults the American people when they put forth misleading stories such as this. It's no wonder that, as the Media Research Center points out, only 24% of people have a favorable opinion of the New York Times.
This is also on the heels of their unfounded piece last week alleging a sex scandal between McCain and a lobbyist. Why don't they improve their accuracy rating by changing their name from the New York Times to the DNC Times?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even journalists. But when the NY Times and other media outlets come out with slanted and misleading articles, why not do us the favor of at least admitting, "We're a liberal outlet." At least then there'd be some "truth in advertising."
2 comments:
Nope, it's not silly at all. McCain is not legally eligible to be President.
The full details are too long for a comment, but can be found, fully cited, at my blog, at http://muddythoughts.blogspot.com/2008/02/panmanchurian-candidate-mccain.html
As much as I'd like to agree with you, Mudslinger (I'm not a McCain fan), I can't.
I'll admit that I don't know much about State Dept. regulations, which is what 7 FAM 1100 is, but I worked in DOD for 10 years, and DOD regulations do not carry the same weight as United States law or the Constitution. Military regulations carry legal weight upon service members within the UCMJ, which is a limited scope, and not broadly applicable as general law. So I don't believe 7 FAM 1100 is authoritative.
Article III of the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty of 1903 says "The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power and authority within the zone...if it were the sovereign of the territory...to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power or authority."
In other words, this sounds like the US had all rights, power and authority AS IF IT WERE THE SOVEREIGN of the land, as if it WERE PART OF THE UNITED STATES.
As I said in my original post, I think the case can easily be made that the original intent of the Founders was to prevent someone with foreign allegiances and ties from becoming president. With someone born to two U.S. citizens, and within an area of control of the U.S., I can't see that such a supposition would apply.
I wouldn't mind seeing McCain out of the race, but I don't think this is grounds to force him out.
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