Richard Disney

The eligibility of John McCain to be President of the United States is getting some more buzz after an article asking that question was published in the New York Times. Ed Morrissey who is moving to Hot Air published a post analyzing the New York Times article.

I think that the New York Times will publish anything they can, whether it is true or not, to denigrate John McCain. I don’t like that The Times is questioning whether McCain is eligible to be President but unfortunately, I think they have a point. As I said in a previous post about the same issue, McCain’s birth in the Panama Canal Zone brings into question whether or not he is a natural born citizen of the United States or whether he is a naturalized citizen. Based on my experience in the military overseas and how law is currently interpreted I think McCain is naturalized. McCain’s eligibility to be President will only come into question if a candidate or a political party files a law suit. It is debatable whether a candidate or political party would risk such a move. I contend that if McCain is leading by a big margin or in fact wins the general election, then McCain’s political opponents will have nothing to lose by filing a law suit questioning his eligibility.

It will be interesting to see if McCain’s eligibility even becomes an issue and if so, how it pans out.

Hat Tip: Tom Kovach at Military.com

I did not know until today that Senator John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. I lived in the Republic of Panama for over 3 years while in the U.S. Army. Interestingly, I was just talking with a friend about the Panama Canal and how the Panama Canal Zone used to be a possession of the United States like American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are today. An interesting question is raised by an article over at Military.com. Is a Puerto Rican or a Guamanian eligible to be President of the United States? If John McCain wins and is inaugurated as President the answer would be yes because the exact same circumstances apply.

Is someone born in a possession of the United States considered a “natural born citizen“ as defined by the U.S. Constitution? John McCain has not been known as a strict interpreter of the Constitution especially in lending his name and efforts to the McCain-Feingold legislation which restricts political speech prior to elections of all things. What part of “Congress shall make no law…” does McCain not understand? Senator McCain’s ability to bend or ignore the Constitution makes more sense relative to his citizenship status and his run for U.S. President.

According the Constitution, there are only three requirements for an individual to be President of the United States. The Constitution says:

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

Although there is no doubt that John McCain is a citizen of the United States, the question is if he is a “natural born citizen” and eligible to be President of the United States. McCain is only the third person in the history of the United States where the citizenship question has applied. Prior to John McCain only Barry Goldwater who ran for President in 1964 (born in Arizona while it was still a U.S. Territory) and George Romney who ran in 1968 (born in Mexico to U.S. parents) have prompted the question of natural born citizen status and eligibility for the Presidency.

During the current Presidential primary (or the 2000 primary) I had heard no mention of the McCain eligibility issue until now. The litigious nature of past Democrat Presidential candidates (like Gore in 2000) should make one have no doubt that if McCain ends up winning the general election there will be a motion made to the Supreme Court as to McCain’s eligibility to hold the Presidential (or even Vice-Presidential) office. It would be very disturbing indeed to see a Democratic victory for the Presidency by the Democrats successfully proving the winner ineligible in court.

It is easy to see yet another reason for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to endorse John McCain because of Schwarzenegger’s own naturalized citizenship status and his reported desire to seek the Presidency in the future.