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He states that this issue has never been decided by the Supreme Court before ... EVER ... in our history.

I doubt if this issue has ever been decided in any federal court whatsoever. In legal lingo, it's a "case of first impression," as Leo Donofrio clearly stated.

bttt

He has a couple of interesting points, both of which are correct.

The Supreme Court has never ruled on the meaning or application of the "natural born" clause in any context; and there is in fact a fair amount of historical material demonstrating that the meaning of the clause when implemented was a citizen at birth, born within the limits of the geographical territory of the sovereign of the country of which he was born a citizen.

Having been peripherly involved in the legal issue at the time of Goldwater's candidacy, there is no doubt that the unanimous view of the Constitutional Bar of that era was that the phrase meant born in the geographical limits of the several states.

I believe that remained the view of the increasingly narrow group of lawyers who regularly argue cases to the Court--there was widespread discussion in DC assuming and acknowledging that McCain was not eligible to serve as President because he was born in Panama. That discussion did not reach the press or talk radio because the overwhelming view of both the press and the legal community was that McCain had no chance to win--he was simply a placeholder; his ineligibility made no difference because he wasn't going to get elected.

And both the press and the lawyers ignored the possible issue with Obama because it was assumed that if he had not been born in Hawaii, the defect would have surfaced, either in his Senate campaign (which it did where it was ignored) or in the primary (in which the Clinton's botched their handling of the issue).

Observe that even Rush and Hannity treated this as a fringe issue with no merit until the later days.

My own reaction to this is that they are now losing control of the issue--whether it happens fast enough to affect the Electoral College outcome is anybody's guess; but the issue now has legs and will result in a Constitutional crisis unless it gets resolved.

It wouldn't surprise me if a package of additional fraudulent documents appears in the near future together with a full court media press to substantiate them.