“You cannot be both a NBC and a foreigner simultaneously. A man cannot serve two masters.”
Surely you are not suggesting Obama has any loyalty to the British government...Saudi, maybe, but that is a religious thing. Not the Brits.
If Russia (or the British, or anyone else) declared me a citizen, that would NOT give me divided loyalties. NBC has legal meanings that would have carried over from natural born subject, and the ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark discusses those:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html
From the UK Telegraph:
Barack Obamas top 10 insults against Britain
One of the first things he did was send the bust of Winston Churchill back to Britain.
From a senior US State Department official:
Theres nothing special about Britain. Youre just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldnt expect special treatment.
And after his constant attacks on BP, the UK pensioners who depend on the health of BP stocks are none too happy with our "boot on their throat" President. Obama has made it clear, by his actions and words, that he has no allegiance to the crown. Quite the contrary.
Politically speaking, this divided loyalty argument is silly, and demonstrably false.
There’s no question that Obama has loyalty to his home country. He’s been trying to get the Kenyan constitution changed to allow dual citizenship, presumably so he can legally be a U.S. citizen and not just a Kenyan.
The main thing that the NBC clause is trying to prevent is divided loyalties OR the ability of another country to exert undue influence over the POTUS. This can happen both through voluntary allegiance owed by POTUS to a foreign power or through the ability of a foreign government to use coercion against the POTUS by threatening his non US relatives, or even using the POTUS's non-US citizen relatives to influence him to act contrary to the US's best interests. So you see, its not just the possibility of voluntary allegiance that is a problem, its the possibility for foreign powers to coerce POTUS if he still has blood connections still resident in a foreign nation that is a problem.
So if a country to whom you have no blood connection, such as Russia grants you citizenship that you have not solicited, then that is less problematic because you have no real connection to the country. However, if you have kin in that country, it is definitely a potential problem. The Founding Father's wanted to minimize the risk of this danger.