Posted on 11/11/2008 8:40:00 PM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
It's a week after the election, and I'm still getting e-mails that holler about how Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he's not a "natural born citizen" under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. Enough already!
Last winter, even the New York Times was suckered into taking seriously the loopy theory that John McCain is not a natural born citizen because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. As I explained then, his parentage sufficed no matter where he was born, since his parents were U.S. citizens.
So too with Obama. All indications are that he was born in Hawaii in 1961. The state authorities say they have his birth certificate (though the fact that a modern printout of an electronic record has been made available rather than a photocopy of the 1961 original has sent some people round the bend).
And what if Obama was not born in the U.S. but instead, as some claim, in Kenya? Well, his mother was an American citizen, and as UCLA law prof and blogger Eugene Volokh explained to the Chicago Tribune, the applicable statutes about foreign birth with one U.S. citizen parent are on Obama's side here.
At this point the spluttering begins, from loons like Pennsylvania lawyer Philip Berg, who try to bootstrap an argument that young Barack lost his U.S. citizenship while living in Indonesia. This isn't a reach. It's preposterous.
Berg's frivolous lawsuit (and "frivolous" is putting it nicely) was tossed out for lack of standing shortly before the election by a federal district court. The howls only increased in volume, from people who have no understanding of the limits of judicial power. This question—if it were even a question—is to be settled not by judges but by the electors in their state capitals next month, and by the Congress that finalizes the election in January when the electors' ballots are counted.
Give it up and get on with life. Barack Obama is going to become president on January 20, 2009. He won, fair and square, an office he is eligible to occupy. So stop with the fetid, fervid, fevered e-mails, okay?
I don’t think he’s a citizen, but I think it’s a lost cause.
Thank you. And please no more API or larry sinclair nonsense either.
Lord please make the condescending self-serving folks at National Review stop undermining conservatives.
Yup, fair and square. ACORNs and all. He’ll make the best president money can buy.
The authorities in Hawaii haven’t said if he was born in the US.
It was possible at that time, with my understanding, to have a birth certificate made after being born in a foreign country.
Also, his mother apparently did not retain her citizenship when becoming a naturalized citizen in a different country, for which she had to give up US citizenship.
If in fact he is a citizen, why spend thousands in attorney fees to keep the birth certificate hidden? Just doesnt sound right.
I thought the argument on this point had to do with the age of his mother and the requirement of the statute. Not that rules matter I suppose.
I gotta agree with 90% of the article. I don’t think he won “fair and square” because of ACORN. However, I think the article is on the money when it states that, as long as his mother was a citizen, he is too.
This article is full of misleading and downright wrong information as well as having assertions not supported by any evidence.
What about all the other things that haven’t been investigated?
POTUS is the most powerful office in the world for crying out loud, and we know precious little, and that is wrong.
Like the so-called Columbia years?
Members of the media have admitted they didn’t do their jobs, so what are we supposed to think?
Oh, sorry, I guess I am being fevered and fetid.
*blows gasket*
If that Larry Sinclair story is true, and Obama had a limo special, he will most likely do it again. Probably have to wait a few years but it will happen again.
Dear SCOTUS, make it stop.
DQ him.
The National Review has gone to the dogs, kinda like the Today Show.
35 years ago they were both respectable, but not today.
“We will be quiet when he shows his vault birth certificate.”
Good idea. I don’t know what’s the problem here.
There I fixed it.
It will be a thorn in his side that follows him throughout his administration just as "selected not elected" followed Bush. It won't amount to anything. People are going to pontificate on the internet about our "Kenyan president" while Obama sits in the Oval Office signing legislation.
The article is wrong on that count. There is more to it than merely having a mother that is a US citizen. She had not been a resident of the US for long enough after her 16th birthday to automatically confer citizenship on Barack.
mcCain had to show his birth certificate so does anyonelse running. yet the messiah doesn’t? was he even born? or did hi crawl out from under a rock somewhere.
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