If that’s true, it needs to be fixed. A constitutional amendment would be best.
It's not broken. It doesn't need to be fixed.
Suppose McCain had won.
What happens politically if there is a crisis in his native Panama?
Anything he says or does, or fails to say or do will be criticized based on the perception that his judgment with regards to his place of birth is colored by his personal connection and bias towards or against it.
Unless a foreign born president is a democrat, he will never escape the whisper campaign about how he is unduly influenced by un-American connections.
Worse, our enemies know this and would foment trouble in Panama just to distract and sow dissent in the enemy camp.
A foreign born citizen can be anything else, a senator, a top general, a supreme court justice, a captain of industry, is it really essential that they be the president?
Is having that one singular job worth risking the entire country's security?
“What happens politically if there is a crisis in his native Panama? Anything he says or does, or fails to say or do will be criticized based on the perception that his judgment with regards to his place of birth is colored by his personal connection and bias towards or against it.”
I’m guessing you were never a military dependent.
McCain is not a native of Panama; he’s a native of the U.S. Navy. (But one cannot forget that nasty business in Hanoi.) Dependents rarely if ever develop a connection with any of the places they spend a couple of years.
Get around dependents sometime. They don’t ask “have you lived in Japan?” “Have you lived in Germany?”
They ask, “Were you at the Marine base at Iwakuni?” “Were you at Frankfurt am Main?” (Meaning the base.) They don’t go to the local Japanese school. They don’t go to the local German school. They go to school on base. Library, movie theater, swimming pool, restaurants, commissary—all on base.
You’re worried about children like my older four, who attended school in Japan, who are more comfortable in the Japanese culture than the American. There might be some legitimate grounds for worry there.
Not with military dependents.