What a bunch of b.s.  A child of two American citizens is a natural born as opposed to naturalized American citizen, no matter where he is born.

Otherwise, the child of say, the American Ambassador to the United Kingdom, if born in London would be ineligible for the presidency.  Along with every child of every admiral, general, sergeant, and private born while the parents were serving overseas.

Overreaching by the oppostion once again.

I agree. A total non-issue. McCain is as qualified for the Presidency by virtue of his birth as Obama.

If Obama had been born three years earlier than 1961, when Hawaii was only a US Territory and not a state, how would his supporters react if his eligibility were questioned?

Let's move on, please. Nothing to talk about here, unless it's the increasing tendency of the New York Times to be off the wall.

I'm a pretty strong textual literalists when it comes to the Constitution, but even I can't find any grounds for doubting McCain's eligibility. It would take a pretty strained reading of the Fourteenth Amendment to suggest that by naming all persons born in the United States as citizens, the children of citizens born overseas are excluded from citizenship. All citizens are either natural-born or naturalized, and McCain is not naturalized. Ergo, he is a natural-born citizen.

It's also worth noting that we don't actually insist too strongly on enforcing the presidential qualifications. For example, in no meaningful sense had Dwight Eisenhower been a "resident" of the United States for fourteen years before his election. And in any meaningful sense, both Bush and Cheney were Texas residents at the time that Texas's electors cast their votes for both men, a clear violation of the Twelfth Amendment's rules governing the conduct of the Electoral College. Strictly speaking, Texas's votes for Dick Cheney should not have counted, and the Senate should have elected Cheney vice president on their own. But if we're not going to stand on the niceties in that case, I don't see why we should even consider questioning McCain's eligibility.

Anyway, a question: Assuming there were any possible meat to the McCain-is-not-eligible nonsense, would the federal judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, have the good sense to refuse to review the question, leaving the matter to be settled by the Electoral College and by Congress?

Chan,

You're right: if McCain is ineligible, and the child was born off Embassy grounds, then the child would be born outside the US and would face the same difficulty.

And the children of parents serving overseas.

And the children of parents who are currently serving, where those parents are naturalized citizens and where those parents became citizens after the children were born.

I'm bringing up the last to take away any sense that the law is supposed to be "fair" to military personnel and automatically have their children be eligible for citizenship. It's completely possible to have military personnel who are not US citizens (we do now) who are serving overseas (they are now, including in Iraq) who have children overseas (happens now) who will completely *not* meet the definition of a "natural-born citizen" (again, happens now).

And the "bunch of b.s." doesn't actually get decided until a court looks at it. Personally, I'd like to see it go to court so that McCain *can* be declared a natural-born citizen - we'd at least have a better definition then.

"Overreaching by the oppostion once again."

What opposition?  No one is challenging this, just noting the legal oddity.  

But hey -- maybe we've finally found something for which we could say John McCain would be first at: First president born outside the United States.

That's something, anyway, since McCain wouldn't be the first former POW, the first naval officer, the first naval aviator, nor even the first Naval Academy grad, and thanks to Reagan he doesn't even win the oldest prize. Not the first Irish-American, or even the first actual Mic-surnamed president. I'd been afraid that after 43 presidents, we'd run out of things a white guy could be first at, so born outside the United States is pretty good.

kevmonj: the law doesn't care how supporters/non-supporters react. Not the issue. It's an issue of what the legal interpretation is of the law.

Rhubarbs: actually, citizens are either "born" or "naturalized," not "natural-born" or "naturalized." If you think modifiers don't matter, consider "manslaughter" v. "involuntary manslaughter" or "murder" v. "premeditated murder."

Modifiers matter -- a lot.

And as to Eisenhower: from his biography at the Eisenhower library (www.eisenhower.archives.gov/.../DWIGHT_DAVID_EISENHOWER.pdf), he was a resident of the United States for far longer than 14 years.

So, not quite sure what point you were making about Eisenhower. Article II, Sect. 1, Para 5 says, "... and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States," not fourteen years immediately prior to running for office or fourteen years as an adult.

But the difference between a military base versus an Embassy is that the embassy IS actually American soil. The base is there through negotiations between two countries. That being said, McCain's parents were American citizens at the time and no matter where he was born...he's a natural-born U.S. citizen.

This is going beyond stupid.

McC should drop Mellencamp's songs and use Van Halen's Panama instead!

i have a relative who was born in japan to a serving military officer and his american wife during the 1950s. my understanding is that she had to be naturalized.

FWright, in the case of any Republican, the New York Times is the opposition.

They've made that very clear over the years.

pccostello, if your relative born in Japan to two American citizens had herself naturalized someone advised her very poorly.  It was not necessary.

I love-- love-- the irony, that a Mexican illegal can sneak across the border and bear a child here who would unquestionably be an American citizen, eligible for the presidency at age 36.  Even if that child returned immediately to Mexico and spoke not a word of English and couldn't tell you George Washington from Simon Bolivar.

But, John McCain, who was an officer in the U.S. Navy, the grandson of a WW2 admiral serving in the Pacific, son of another distinguished admiral, and tracing his lineage back to Washington's staff-- he has his true citizenship questioned.

It is total bullshit.  And the Supreme Court would never hold otherwise.  Even Ms. Ginsberg.

Rhubarbs, which president was a former POW?

Its clear, ChanRobt, that McCain is a citizen of the American Empire.  No one is questioning his loyalties.

Chan, on what grounds could the Supreme Court rule either way on the question of a president's eligibility? In the absence of any specific grant of jurisdiction on the matter, which is absent from the Constitution, isn't this a question to be decided by presidential electors and Congress alone?

Anyway, Andrew Jackson was captured and held as a POW by the British during the War of Independence. He and an older brother Robert were captured together; both were badly abused by their British captors. Robert died of the British mistreatment of prisoners. Young Andrew -- he was 13 when captured -- refused a British officer's commands to perform menial labor, insisting on his rights as a prisoner of war. (Which the British forces generally refused to recognize -- from the British perspective, the patriots were engaged in treason, not war.) The officer slashed at Andrew's head twice with his sword, leaving Jackson scarred for life. That's why nearly every portrait of Old Hickory depicts him looking to the right, showing the unscarred left side of his face and hiding the scars on the right side.

I think we're a little too wound up here, folks.  No one is suggesting that it would be challenged in any sense.  But it would be funny to see Tancredo having to defend McCain because of his birth place.  Though, does anyone else get the feeling that this would have been brought up by the repubs if it were Obama - think Huckabee and the "True Christians" which are not Mormon.

Rhubarbs, thanks for the answer to my P.O.W. question.

As to your other, I'm not an expert on Federal law, so I don't know who would have jurisdiciton.  But, I'm imagining there is a scenario, like say the electors did decide (spuriously in my opinion) that McCain was somehow not a citizen.  I assume McCain could sue in the Supreme Court over this.  

But, do electors have powers equivalent to the Congress?  Who prevails between the Supreme Court and the electors?  The Supremes throw out laws periodically that were passed by Congress.  So, I'm guessing they could throw out a decision by the electors re Constitutional citizenship.

singlespeed, though in the past the child of an ambassador might be born on the grounds of the embassy, which as you rightly point out, is American soil, I'm assuming that most places, except maybe in the Third World, the child would be born in a hospital off grounds.

And to your point, by the way, when Iran occupied our embassy for a year and a half, they were occupying our national soil.  We ought to have gone to war with them then.  And avoided the prospects we face now.

Andrew Davis, give me a break with your "American Empire" crap.  His grandfather served nobly in World War II in the Pacific.  but, I suppose to you, that was an imperial war.

I think George Washington was the first president born outside of the United States, in as much as the US did not exist when he (or Jefferson, Adams, Madison, ....) were born.

The real question is whether being delivered by C-Section, or being the product of in vitro qualificationrt is  a sufficiently "un-natural" mode of birth to get you disqualified.

Sheesh.  What nonsense.

channy, you are wrong about one thing, you only need one parent to be a US citizen, both of my sons were born in China, were given a birth certificate and passport straight away. And my wife was a Chinese citizen at the time. when they left China under a US passport they were stripped of their Chinese citizenship (China doesn't allow dual citizenship)

anyway, this is not nonsense, these are vital issues for quite a few expats living abroad, not because of the likelihood of children being President, but a clear understanding of how the law works is essential. I can tell you horror stories of what happens when ignorant consulate or embassy personnel don't know the relevant laws and statutes, which leads in some cases to children being born without any citizenship (many countries don't give citizenship as a birthrite to children being born within the country, like Germany, Ireland, etc). All of the instances I know of were resolved, but not without a hell of a lot of unnecessary stress for the parents.

I can back up blackton on his point. In my case, my father is a U.S. citizen, my mother is a German citizen. And once my father notified the consulate in Munich of my birth, I became a U.S. citizen by birth.

Right. That's the critical legal/constitutional distinction. If your citizenship was acquired by virtue of your birth, whether because of the territory on which you were born or the parents to whom you were born, then you're eligible. If your citizenship had to be acquired after your birth, then you are not eligible. McCain is the former, not the latter, so he's eligible.

Which raises the question of enforcement. As far as I can see, if the electors vote for a candidate, and Congress certifies the electors' ballots, then there's nothing anyone else can do to prevent an under-35 non-citizen from becoming president. Nothing in the Constitution gives the judiciary jurisdiction over this question. Perhaps the first time President Harry Windsor signs a law and that law is enforced against someone, that person would have standing to challenge the law as null due to the president's ineligibility for office. Or would the losing candidate have grounds to sue, and if so, on what grounds and to what court?

There is nothing in the Constitution that explicitly makes the Supreme Court the final arbiter of Constitutional law.  We have the early case of Marbury v Madison and Chief Justice John Marshall to thank for that. This was, however, a logical interpolation of the very meaning of Supreme Law and Supreme Court wholly consistent with the practice and tradition of the common law.  

To the wacko Originalists (this means you Antonin Scalia), one need only point out that the drafters of the Constitution were common law lawyers who full expected -- they could hardly expect otherwise -- that the Constitution would be construed in accordance with centuries of common law tradition.  It was written with that firmly in mind which is why it is framed in such general terms.  But for the common law tradition, it would have been framed in a manner more like the Napoleonic Code - reams of detail.  I understand that the rejected EU Constitution came to hundreds of pages.  T

I just want to say this was the funniest reply I've read all week:

"Andrew Davis  said:

McC should drop Mellencamp's songs and use Van Halen's Panama instead!"

ChanRobt, whether or not the child of illegal immigrants is a "natural-born" US citizen has nothing to do with whether McCain is a "natural-born" US citizen.

Some points:

1. No one - but NO ONE - is saying McCain is not a citizen. He is, and he was born one. NEITHER of these points are in contention, no matter what demagogues might like the argument to be about.

2. The question is whether he is a "natural-born" citizen (note the modifier) under the meaning of a specific piece of law. This is a legal interpretation, not an emotional interpretation (hence the reason that the use of a "child-of-illegal-immigrants" straw man argument has no relevance).

3. There's actually an excellent legal analysis over at The Bench on NRO:

bench.nationalreview.com

(first "Natural Born Foolishness," then "How to Fumble a Sure Thing")

Note that Franck's analysis suggests that this doesn't even need to go to court to be determined.

twicker, if you are a citizen by virtue of the U.S. nationality of both your parents, and you did not need to acquire citizenship via naturalization, then are you not a natural-born citizen?

What other interpretation for "natural born citizen" could there be?  there is no Constitutional definition of "natural born citizen" that narrows it to being born on American soil.

And, I'm quite certain that the Framers had no intention of making the children of American envoys serving overseas ineligible for the presidency.  Given that such envoys had included Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams before the creation of the Constitution.

And, blackie, yes, I understand you don't need two American parents to have citizenship passed onto you from a parent..  I was merely alluding to McCains particular situation in which both his parents were Americans.

I've been traveling today, so it's possible someone's beaten me to this. But this strikes

This is obviously a plant by the Clinton Campaign to undermine Senator McCain's status and compare him to illegal immigrants.

Oh wait, that's the Obama trick to attack anything that questions you as evil and designed to undermine you.

McCain is a Natural Born Citizen.  He is not a native born citizen.  Subtle but important distinction.

CRS9TNR, was not McCain born in the Canal Zone?  U.S. territory.  Not a state, but U.S. soil, nevertheless.  That would make him native as well as natural, wouldn't it?

One of the points made about Pearl Harbor and that made it an extra outrage, was that it was the first attack on U.S. soil since 1813.

ChanRobt, according to Wikipedia, the Canal Zone is Panama Territory under US sovereignty.  But a US Military Hospital probably qualifies as US Soil.  McCain is Native as well as Natural.  I think you are right that he is native born, but it is a legal hair-splitting.

But Hawaii was a territory, not a state when attacked.  Statehood was another 20 years away.  As the United States, it's hard to argue that this territory had the same standing as the 48 states.  Imagine an attack on Guam right now.  But yes your point is valid, we were attacked at a Military Base.

CRS9TNR, in my quick googling could not find the distinction of the Canal Zone being Panama territory under U.S. rule.  Far as I can find, it was a U.S. possession as much as Hawaii was.  But, you may well be correction in your distinction.

As to comparing Hawaii in 1941 to Guam now, technically they were of the same status.  But, emotionally, there were much stronger connections in the national psyche to Hawaii.    Americans had been there in large numbers going back to the mid-19th Century as missionaries, traders, and families of several generations by 1941.

A fair number of Americans travelled to Honolulu, mainly by the Matson ship lines, sometimes by Pan American Clipper.  And we had large military bases there.

I can assure you, when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7th, it was taken as an attack on American soil, and close to as shocking as if the attack had been on San Diego.