Isn’t that an odd question in my title? Why wouldn’t Sen. John McCain qualify constitutionally to be president?
I had not heard about this, but some have brought up the issue that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone — and have raised the issue that he might not, therefore, qualify to be president under the constitutional requirement that a president must be a “natural-born citizen.” Not so helpfully, the Founding Fathers failed to explain what they meant when they put that phrase into the Constitution.
What an odd idea, however. What part of the Panama Canal Zone being U.S. territory as a U.S. military base would NOT qualify him as “natural born”? That is, his father was serving in the military — so he was born of a mother and father who were citizens living in a U.S. territory. Seems odd the question would even come up. Nevertheless, McCain’s campaign called on former Solicitor General Ted Olson for an opinion on the matter. Olson’s decision wipes out the issue as far as I’m concerned — he indicated it would be a no-brainer even if it got to the Supreme Court.
I can think of a lot of reasons I would not want Sen. John McCain to be president — but his birth in the Panama Canal Zone to parents who were there because his father was in the U.S. military is not one of them.
I could list — and maybe in a future post I will — many reasons I would not want him as president.
Technorati Tags: John McCain citizenship, presidential qualifications, just a guy who reads the papers