[ServesURight]

BUMP

[martin_fierro]

All this means nothing to the junior Senator from Illinois Arkansas New York.

[Petronski]

Ridiculous.

[dirtboy]

Nothing like confusing pronouns with reality.

[r9etb]

What a waste of bits and pixels.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[dirtboy]

I guess we can't have female congresscritters, either:

Clause 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

But, gee golly whiz, we DO have femal congresscritters! Maybe that shoots a big honkin' hole through this idiotic theory.

Try writing something in English with non-gendered pronouns and get back to me. I wrote a science-fiction story once without giving a couple of entities gender, and it was a bitch.

[finnman69]

Sorry, they had me with Bill Clinton is inelegible to run again. The Hillary angle is BS.

[dirtboy]

Because she cannot constitutionally fill the vacancy caused by the death, resignation, impeachment and removal of any US president under whom she served.

Where in the heck did that come from? And please tell me where the position of First Lady is mentioned in the Constitution, and how that is Constitutionally-mandated service, above and beyond the absurd notion that someone who served under a president cannot fill a vacancy from that president - review the presidential succession order, which includes cabinet members, and get back to me.

[SedVictaCatoni]

This whole thing is silly. No court is going to rule that where a document says "he", it does not mean "he, or she", unless that document has some particular purpose to refer only to men. The Founders wrote the Constitution with exclusive use of the masculine pronoun because it never occurred to them that a woman would seek the office of the presidency. (History is almost totally devoid before 1787 of female politicians who were not royalty.) Documents are still written today with only the one pronoun, because writing both is cumbersome and repetitive.

Bottom line: the Constitution does not say "the President shall be male". Therefore there is no bar.

[laotzu]

A weak, and duboius theory.

Probably nothing more than sophistry.

[tdadams]

This is a case of someone being plausibly correct technically, but having his correct assertion be completely irrelevant and ignored.

[LonePalm]

PING!

Thoughts? It would be an interesting case to try. I think that the Supreme Court might have original jurisdiction on this one.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Centurion2000]

bump ... interesting argument ... and thank God.

[San Jacinto]

Jon Christian ain't much of a 'Ryter'. It is highly unlikely that the Constitution's use of the male pronoun in referring to the office of the presidency sets up a requirement that the occupant be male. There is ample precedent for reading the word "he" as inclusive of both sexes rather than the more cumbersome "he or she" in the construction of legal documents. In setting up the specific requirements for holding the office, the Constitution is rather specific -- i.e. a natural born citizen over the age of 35 years. If it were intended to restrict the office to males only, then it would have been simple to specify natural born "male" citizens.

On the other hand, I will give Jon Christian credit for rightly pointing out that Orrin Hatch is an idiot. I believe Hatch is a Kennedy democrat who only plays the part of a conservative on TV in order to get elected. His idea of amending the Constitution to allow immigrants to hold the office of President is just one more of his hair brained schemes.

[proud American in Canada]

This article is silly.

Sure, the Founding Fathers may have contemplated male presidents at that time. But there is no way the Supreme Court, in this day and age, would issue a ruling supporting that.

See, there's a little amendment that requires equal protection under the law.... it's been interpreted to preclude discrimination based on sex.

[Congressman Billybob]

This article is such a mismash of undigested constitutional garbage that it is hard to know where to start. Let's just review the election laws under which candidates run for office in the United States.

The election laws under which candidates get on the ballot and run for office are written at the STATE level, not the FEDERAL level. So says the US Constitution. Other than specific requirements such as age, residence and citizenship, under the laws of the states, anyone who is eligible to be a voter is also eligible to be a candidate.

Specifically, that means after the ratification of the XIX Amendment, any native-born woman over the age of 35 (and not barred as a result of being a convicted felon) can register to vote and can also run for President (or Vice President).

It is absolutely amazing to me that an apparently sentient person who can read and write has published an article like this. I urge all FReepers to reject this whole cloth as the nonsense it is.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "The Value of Death -- Civilian, 'Senseless," and Combat Deaths."

If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.

[b4its2late]

Hillary! could probably and successfully argue that she is a man, though Webb Hubbell might be able to testify otherwise to that argument.... Eeeewwwwwwww.

[Karyn M. PhD]

In an interesting side note to Ferraro's candidacy in 1984, the Republicans captured 57% of all of the female votes that year. It seems that, other than the diehard party loyalists and feminists, not even the women of America wanted a woman anywhere near the White House—except, perhaps, as First Lady.

This strike anyone else as completely ludicrous?

[Tallguy]

Just try making this argument the morning after Hillary -- God forbid -- is elected and see how far you get.