The ad cites 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401, apparently for the proposition that so long as one parent was a U.S. citizen, it doesn't matter that the child was born outside the U.S.
The interesting thing about 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401 is that it starts this way:
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
What's interesting about this "shall be" language?
One theory of natural born citizenship is that it is the citizenship one naturally is born with simply because of one's bloodline. It is NOT conveyed by the act of any Sovereign (monarch, country, etc.).
It seems that one could argue that this section of the U.S. Code explicitly demonstrates that those born in circumstances that are said to pertain to Barack Obama (the child of one American citizen and an alien, possibly born outside the United States) are not "naturally" Americans, but are deemed American --- note the language in the Code --- nationals and citizens AT birth.
So, first, the Code doesn't say such individuals are "natural born citizens." It says they are deemed, by affirmative grant of law, "nationals and citizens." Duh. No one says Obama is not an American citizen. The question birthers raise is: is he a "natural born citizen"? And there's an argument to be made that this section of the U.S. Code doesn't answer that question definitively.
Remember the Code doesn't say such individuals are "nationals and citizens AT birth"? It says the Sovereign deems that they "shall be" something they otherwise were NOT -- "nationals and citizens" and this shall be deemed to have occurred at the time of birth.
Even if one were to find that nationals somehow means "natural born," the second point is that this section of the Code explicitly states that the subject status, that of nationals and citizens, is deemed to be granted by the Sovereign AT birth.
The citizenship one is naturally born with (based on the ancient legal principle that no man can be born without a country) is already present upon (arguably even before) birth. So, again, there is an argument to be made that 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401 explicitly demonstrates that the status of "nationals and citizens" is one that is deemed by the Sovereign and, therefore, not necessarily the same thing as one's natural citizenship status.
(Sorry Black Newspaper Publishers Association.)
On the IRS website, a U.S. national is defined as:
U.S. National
An individual who owes his sole allegiance to the United States, including all U.S. citizens, and including some individuals who are not U.S. citizens. For tax purposes the term "U.S. national" refers to individuals who were born in American Samoa or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Clearly, a "national" is not the same thing as "natural born citizen."
Further, the IRS site states:
U.S. Citizen
An individual born in the United States.
An individual whose parent is a U.S. citizen.*
A former alien who has been naturalized as a U.S. citizen
An individual born in Puerto Rico.
An individual born in Guam.
An individual born in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
*The Child Citizenship Act, which applies to both adopted and biological children of U.S. citizens, amends Section 320 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to provide for the automatic acquisition of U.S. citizenship when certain conditions have been met. Specifically, these conditions are:
One parent is a U.S. citizen by birth or through naturalization;
The child is under the age of 18;
The child is residing in the United States as a lawful permanent resident alien and is in the legal and physical custody of the U.S. citizen parent; and
If the child is adopted, the adoption must be final.
Clearly, the citizenship status above is granted by the Sovereign, soley at the Sovereign's discretion. There are even conditions placed on when this discretionary grant of citizenship will be made. This indicates, by contrast, that the Sovereign definitely can withhold this citizenship status from children at birth as well as grant it.
Thus, there is the argument that this citizenship is not that one is naturally born with by way of one's bloodline and the concept that no man can be born without a country.