The New York Times has a story that hems and haws about whether John McCain can be president since he was born in the U.S. Canal Zone. As the blog Sweetness & Light points out, all the NYT reporter had to do was Google for about 30 seconds to find out that, yes, he can.
I was born in Alaska before it was a state and as a kid used to wonder if that American Dream, that all kids can grow up to be president, applied to me. Yes, it does.
The key phrase in the U.S. Constitution is “natural born.” If both parents are American citizens, it really doesn’t matter where you’re born, or when, according to Title 8 of the U.S. Code. Is the Times really this incompetent, or are they just this desperate to kill the chances of a presidential candidate?
UPDATE: When The New York Times falls it will take Modern Journalism down with it.
UPDATE 2: Is Obama eligible? Jim Geraghty has some fun with that question, asking, “Does the Times really want to open this can of worms?”:
Some would argue that by virtue of having a Kenyan citizen as his father, Obama “became” a Kenyan citizen back in 1963, even though he was in Hawaii at the time and did not visit the country until much later in his life. Others would argue that that would only apply to those born in the UK or its colonies (and I have no idea whether the United States qualifies as a UK colony under Kenyan law).
