McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out
WASHINGTON — The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.
Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.
Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.
“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”
Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a Navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that Mr. McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.
But given mounting interest, the campaign recently asked Theodore B. Olson, a former solicitor general now advising Mr. McCain, to prepare a detailed legal analysis. “I don’t have much doubt about it,” said Mr. Olson, who added, though, that he still needed to finish his research.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of Mr. McCain’s closest allies, said it would be incomprehensible to him if the son of a military member born in a military station could not run for president.
“He was posted there on orders from the United States government,” Mr. Graham said of Mr. McCain’s father. “If that becomes a problem, we need to tell every military family that your kid can’t be president if they take an overseas assignment.”
As a retired U.S. Air Force vet with 14 years in the Far East, Europe and the Mediterranean, I would be plumb bent out of shape if the three of my four sons that were born overseas were considered second class citizens and deemed ineligible to serve as President of this great country! Registered at birth through the local American Embassys, granted instant citizenship and American Passports ..... !This appears to be just one more stir of the 'honey bucket' by those draft dodging, pencil necked geek liberals at this former newspaper..... current in-house rag for the Democratic National Party!! A pox on their house and all that abide in it!!
What Ole' Pecoz finds truly ironic in this whole basket of B.S., is that every time this rag goes after McCain, his star seems to rise in the Republican Party. Many unhappy party conservatives came to his support after that last feces laden article..... now a whole passel of Veterans are gonna line up in support as well!
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