I continue to say don’t look any gift horse in the mouth, perhaps it would be intelligent to modify that exclusion to something like American residency all of one’s adult life, you’re probably excluding some very competent and qualified patriotic people from being president while at the same time creating a distraction in the case of the current Resident, who is so clearly incompetent wherever it turns out he was born. I know from my own experience that being born in one country, moving to another at any early age, is almost identical in cultural experience to being native born. Yet people make such a big to-do about it when they find out, “oh you weren’t born here (wrinkle of the nose, etc)” like it matters at all. The nativist sentiment is very much at odds with the true meaning of exceptionalism and almost in a self-evident way, one would think.
“The nativist sentiment is very much at odds with the true meaning of exceptionalism and almost in a self-evident way, one would think.”
Peter, I respectfully disagree. The desire to prevent foreign entanglements is part and parcel with the desire to have an American born president. Look at what happened with the United Kingdom and Hanover. Having a ruler with significant and divided interests is not a good thing for keeping the United States out of wars.