What Do You Call It When “The Gray Lady” Turns In To A Doddering Old Fool?
Sulzheimers.
I mean really, doesn’t Pravda realize how silly they look now?
WASHINGTON — 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.
Hey, if you ignore George Washington, John Adams, Mr. Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren, by god they’re right! When McCain was born there, on an American military base to parents who were both US citizens, the Canal Zone was effectively US territory, it seems to me. Military bases and diplomatic missions have always been considered “US soil” so even if the Zone wasn’t “really” a US territory. I agree there’s always been some uncertainty about this, but it would seem like the weight of tradition and evidence are in McCain’s favor.
But hey, keep those whisper campaigns a’coming.
Next NYT exclusive: John McCain in a guayabera!
Hell, I think “natural born” means that no one born via cesarean section is eligible.
Politics | tree hugging sister | 
February 28, 2008 9:08 am
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“See ya doesn’t hafta call it Natural Born American and ya doesn’t hafta call it Natural Born, just say Natural.”
Sorry. That’s all I got till the caffeine kicks in. But that idiot does seem to be a good metaphor for the NYT – he could be funny if he weren’t so f**king stupid.
But I love the “Sulzheimers”.
I have now come out of anonymity to suggest you add “Sulzheimers” to this dictionary.
“Sulzheimers” is genius!
And doncha love how the NYT loves McCain until he might become president with the wrong letter after his name? Nitwits.
Well, considering the demographics in casa de major dad ~ him being born in the Canal Zone to its US born and raised Fire Chief and his beautiful bride and my popping into existence in Iwakuni, Japan, courtesy of the USMC’s travel service ~ we’re feeling disrespected.
And peevish.
Peevish? Come to think of it I do see the resemblance…
It’s the foreign water.
I was born in Puerto Rico thanks to the US Navy.
I can run for president and fill the vacuumn left by Michael Bloomberg!!
How do you spell “vaccuumn”?
Well, how about some equal opprotunity for disrepect?
I’m not a lawyer (but I have played with the idea of beating up a few) but I think that “natural born” covers children of American citizens no matter where they were born. Realistically, I think it actually means “not naturalized”
I agree, Ken. The Governator couldn’t be President, but John McCain could….and that makes perfect sense.
Of course, we are discussing the NYT here, which is getting harder and harder to distinguish from Helen Thomas, they being both a “Doddering Old Fool” and “Gray Lady Down”.
I suppose if we can debate the meaning of “is” we can debate what “natural born” means. Nothing is too absurd if one is just willing to suspend common sense. It seems to me that the term refers to citizenship at the time of birth, as opposed to gaining citizenship later in life through the naturalization process. As the child of two US citizens it’s pretty clear to me that McCain is a “natural born” citizen regardless of where he was born.
I’m usually a “careful what you wish for” guy, but I really hope someone tries to make a serious issue out of this in the next few months. I don’t think it will play well in Peoria.
“How do you spell “vaccuumn”?”
Easy, cheesey ~ SUCK AND BLOW.
I asked Jon Kary.