Our First Hispanic President

That title could go to presumptive GOP front-runner John McCain who was born in the Panama Canal Zone. It would explain quite a bit.

The New York Times is, yet again, banking on the historical ignorance of the majority of the American voting public.

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, [the latter] a Navy officer, were stationed.

Do we really want to bar from becoming president millions of Americans who were born at overseas military installations while their parents were defending this nation?

And if people born in U.S. territories--such as Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Panama Canal Zone circa 1936*--aren't natural born citizens, then what are they? And what are they doing voting in the presidential elections?

"Did IQs drop sharply while I was away?" (Oh wait. I've been here all along.)

I really hate having to be in John McCain's corner on anything. This defense isn't just for McCain, however; it's for the children of my friends--children born in places like Ramstein Air Base, Germany or Misawa Air Base, Japan.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at NYT's behavior anymore, but I am.

(Thanks to Protein Wisdom)

*Jimmy Carter gave the Zone back to Panama in 1977; the deal was done by 1999.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Weren't the first few PsOTUS born in some other country? (Not really asking.) And don't forget, Alaska and Hawaii didn't become states until 1959. What about people born before then? Are they not allowed to become POTUS? Stupidity reigns.

Comments

[Joseph Welsh]

Was stationed in Japan '69 - '71.
My son was born in the dispensary at Itazuki AFB.
I was told that "any place flying the American flag was considered to be American soil."
For the record, my son was considered to have been born in the USA.

[Jeremy Pierce]

There's a clause in the Constitution that allows people who were born in other countries as long as they were citizens at the founding of the country.

The real issue is what it means to be a natural-born citizen, and the courts have always interpreted this to include the children of U.S. citizens born overseas, whether it's on U.S. soil or not (and in McCain's case it was).

So the argue isn't going to get any headway. It's just an attempt to undermine his presidency before it begins the same way people tried to do with Bush because of the Florida recount.