McCain’s birthplace

The New York Times stoops to new lows, questioning whether John McCain’s birth in the former US Canal Zone disqualifies him for the Presidency. Couched in philosophical language, the Times tries to create a new reason to not vote for McCain among the folks who only read headlines;

The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.

Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”

Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a Navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that Mr. McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

So even though it’s already been settled since 1999, the chattering classes want to bring it up again, huh? I guess that’s why they call them the chattering class.

Um, my youngest daughter was born in Gorgas Hospital in the Canal Zone – about 100 feet from Panama City proper. She has a Panamanian birth certificate, and another certificate issued by the US State Department entitled “Report of US Citizen Born Abroad”. At the time, Gorgas Hospital was in the US-owned Canal Zone, US property, administered by the US government and surrounded by US citizens.

John McCain, and my daughter, were born to American parents on US territory. It’s like saying Abe Lincoln couldn’t be President because Kentucky wasn’t a State when he was born there, for pete’s sake.

I guess if Obama had been born two years earlier we’d be having the discussion about him, too, since Hawaii wasn’t a State two years before he was born?

h/t to Right Voices who first twigged me to the subject. Pirate’s Cove is virtual Panamanian rainforest of links on the subject.

Category: John McCain/Sarah Palin, Politics