If Obama had never traveled to Kenya and campaigned for his Dad's relative, if Obama did not express any longing dreams of his absent father and instead severed all ties -- it might be argued he would be presumed a natural born child of a single-mom. But he did not. His loyalty is from the time of his birth conflicted. His father's citizenship binds Obama to Kenya as much as the US, Obama himself, while a mature adult, has proved that. Thus, Obama is not a full "natural born" citizen even if he was born in the US.
How do you read such a case -- not just Obama, but in similar cases of a child born to a citizen and an ambassador or non-citizen agent of a foreign nation?
Not every diplomat or agent of a foreign government travels under diplomatic passport.The diplomatic passport is the key to immunity from the host countries law. See this Wikipedia article for some background....
How do you read such a case -- not just Obama, but in similar cases of a child born to a citizen and an ambassador or non-citizen agent of a foreign nation?
This chart on the State Department web site summarizes the policy of the US government on diplomatic immunity. It shows real immunity is limited to the top levels of the embassy. This immunity is a powerful thing to have and you can bet it's tightly regulated in all countries.
If you entered the country some other way you are subject to all of the laws (ie jurisdiction).
How do you read such a case -- not just Obama, but in similar cases of a child born to a citizen and an ambassador or non-citizen agent of a foreign nation?The child of a diplomat and a citizen in the United States. Good question. I'd bet it's specifically addressed somewhere in the Vienna conventions but I'm not really sure. My guess is the child is a citizen based on the citizen parent but I can't point to a source for it.
The problem with some of the citizenship arguments is they have blow back on all candidates, not just Obama. As David pointed out, McCain almost certainly has Panamanian citizenship. If dual citizenship is a bar we might have to prepare ourselves for president Barr (pun intended).
FDR was born in Canada to American parents. That gave him Canadian citizenship as well as American. Was he technically ineligible?
The United States can control who it gives it's citizenship to. It cannot control who other countries give their citizenship to. Could Putin bestow Russian citizenship on Bush and have him removed from office?
Using these arguments to get rid of a politically undesirable candidate takes our system of elections in a very bad direction. Do we really want to go there?