Yes.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when frivolity goes mainstream. This morning's New York Times carries an article raising the issue whether John McCain, born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father, a Navy admiral, was stationed there, is a "natural born citizen" under Article II of the Constitution and therefore eligible to be president. Of course he is. I spent a weekend a while ago in an intermittent e-mail debate with a few other constitutional law scholars on this question, and I was amazed at how such a simple question could be made so needlessly complex. The last line of the Times article, quoting the author of a long-ago law review article, is that "it is certainly not a frivolous issue." I think that's just what it is, Ptolemaic epicycles of abstruse constitutional reasoning to the contrary notwithstanding.
....
Perhaps the oddest thing about the Times article is its lead: "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?" Actually, I doubt very much that this has ever nagged very many of them at all. Dear overseas American moms and dads: if you haven't been worrying about this, don't start.
Read the rest for the analysis.
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