McCain not American?
Posted by Moonage on 28 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: 2008 Presidential Race
A lot is suddenly being made over a New York Times article that questions whether John McCain qualifies for President. It seems he was born in Panama. Some people are taking the Times to task since they endorsed McCain a long time ago and “suddenly” realized a critical piece of his biography. Now, to the very conspiracy minded, you could easily think they were setting up the Republican Party to lose. Push someone you know has to be disqualified on a technicality to knock the others out first.
However, some people are quite put out with the new York Times for not doing any research apparently. However, if they had done some, they would have realized a technicality that nullifies the entire issue. Best I can tell, John McCain was born on a military base in Panama. Panama was a United States sovereign territory from 1903 to 1979. A little better definition of Panama’s status at that time from Wiki:
Territories of the United States are one type of political division of the United States, administered by the U.S. government but not any part of a U.S. state. These territories were created to govern newly acquired land while the borders of the United States were still evolving.
What the Times is citing is:
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.
John McCain was born a natural born citizen. He just wasn’t born in anything that is now a state.
Case closed.
You’d think the New York Times could have figured that out.
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