McCain not eligible to run?
The NY Times is now questioning McCain's eligibility to run for president:
Quote:
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.
You're kidding me right? First the Times alleges an affair, the DNC trumpets that McCain is "breaking the law" and complains to the FEC about his intention to withdraw from the matching funds program - even though the bank that loaned him the money said "the loan terms specifically excluded from the collateral any potential share of public matching funds McCain was entitled to receive." Now the Times is questioning his eligibility, even though he was born to American citizens serving their country where the government had sent them on an American military facility.
Do the Democrats just want to win by default? Is his eligibility really an issue? This is schoolyard nonsense, isn't it time for politicians and the media to grow up?
