Thursday, February 28, 2008

NYT At It Again

Headline:  “McCain’s birthplace prompts queries about whether that rules him out”

Yet in the article, they quote no one who believes it’s a problem.

Sarah Duggin, law professor, perhaps comes the closest: ““There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” and “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”

Ted Olson:  “I don’t have much doubt about it,”

Senator Lindsay Graham:  “Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of McCain’s closest allies, said it would be incomprehensible to him if the son of a military member born in a military station could not run for president.”

Says he:

“He was posted there on orders from the United States government,” Graham said of McCain’s father. “If that becomes a problem, we need to tell every military family that your kid can’t be president if they take an overseas assignment.”

Dan Nickles:  “They ought to have the same rights,” and, “I don’t think he has any problem whatsoever,” said Nickles, a McCain supporter. “But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if somebody is going to try to make an issue out of it. If it goes to court, I think he will win.”

Attorney Jill Pryor:  “If I were on the Supreme Court, I would decide for John McCain,” Pryor said in a recent interview. “But it is certainly not a frivolous issue.”

So they can’t find one person to come out and say, “John McCain should not be president because he was born in the Canal Zone where his father was serving in the military.”  Good one, NYT.

 

 

(9) Comments
Posted by Wendy at 0814 hrs
Politics + Politics - General

  1. Let’s take a look at the article.

    McCain’s campaign “recently asked Theodore B. Olson, a former solicitor general now advising Mr. McCain, to prepare a detailed legal analysis” of the issue of McCain’s birthplace. In other words, this is an issue that that has merited attention within McCain’s campaign, and that makes it newsworthy.

    So the Times does what a newspaper does best, and reports on the story. They talk to various experts and come to the conclusion that McCain’s place of birth, in fact, probably has no bearing on anything. End of story.

    Yet this seems to trouble you. You write, so they can’t find one person to come out and say, “John McCain should not be president because he was born in the Canal Zone where his father was serving in the military. This suggests that you believe the Times needs to have a predetermined conclusion for this story.


    So how would you have done it differently?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 28, 2008 at 0936 hrs


  2. The thing omitted from the story, which makes it a non-issue is that the Canal Zone was in U.S. hands at the time.

    Posted by Brad V on February 28, 2008 at 1050 hrs


  3. It is an interesting constitutional argument.  I think the NY Times is wrong since at the time the Panama Canal Zone was a US Territory, but it is still an interesting story.  It is not like there has been an instance of this being an issue before.

    The interesting question is, if McCain had been born on an overseas military base, such as Ramstein, would he be eligible.  My guess is no, since military bases are not considered US territory.  Now if he was born inside an actually embassy he would be.  Interesting discussions.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 28, 2008 at 1453 hrs


  4. The NYT’s is in the business of selling papers.  They raised an interesting issue that does not have a clear answer.  They never said McCain shouldn’t be allowed to be president.  The Times definitely oversteps their bounds on remaining unbiased, but that does not mean they aren’t a good paper that does interesting reporting.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 28, 2008 at 1511 hrs


  5. The NYT didn’t say he shouldn’t be president, but they also couldn’t find anyone else who thought he shouldn’t.  It would be like writing, “Some people question whether the sky is blue,” then following it with six or so quotes of people saying, “Well, I’ve done some research on this, and the sky is blue.” but never quoting anyone who actually says the sky is red or purple or even simply the shade of cornflower.  Perhaps the headline should be “The Sky is Blue” or “McCain meets qualifications for president, experts say” rather than insinuating that someone believes the alternative to be true.

    That’s my beef with it, anyway. Alternatively, I’d like to see a headline that says, “Obama’s inexperience prompts queries about whether that rules him out” followed by, say, 3 quotes from people supporting that statement and 3 people opposing that statement.  But in McCain’s case, they couldn’t even find ONE person who would say on the record that they believed McCain did not meet the citizenship requirements.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 28, 2008 at 1827 hrs


  6. And funny how there’s never anything to dig up on Obama.  I’m ordinarily not one of those to go off on rants about the MSM, but nobody can rationally deny that Obama gets handled with kid gloves by journalists.

    Guess we’ll see if they’re all still swooning eight months from now.  I’d wager that even the second coming of Christ himself will get hit by a couple of these hack jobs.  We’ll see how he holds up when it happens.

    Posted by Recess Supervisor on February 28, 2008 at 1949 hrs


  7. I don’t get the controversy.  The constitution says only “natural-born” citizens can be president.  It doesn’t say only persons born within the boundaries of the United States. 

    Section 1401 of Title 8 of the U.S. Code defines “citizens of the United States at birth” and includes:

    “Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S. ”  and

    “Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national.”

    see http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode08/usc_sec_08_00001401——000-.html

    Unless John McCain was delivered by a stork (an unnatural birth), he is a natural born citizen of the United States. 

    Someone is trying to stir up trouble by making a non-issue sound like an issue.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 29, 2008 at 0617 hrs


  8. What’s interesting to me is that McCain has received, for the most part anyway, fawning press coverage for the better part of the last eight years. Now that the worm is starting to turn a little bit, though, the media are completely dropping the ball on what might be important stories.

    This story on where he was born is complete BS. As has been noted, no one has a scintilla of doubt as to his eligibility for the presidency.

    The NYT story the other day focused mostly on the entirely unsubstantiated rumors from unnamed sources about a possible affair 10 years ago and mostly ignored the evidence of the possibility that he was in the pocket of lobbyists after passing himself off as the scourge of lobbyists. I’m not saying he was or wasn’t, because I don’t know; I’m saying that’s the story, and the NYT did all of us a disservice by focussing on the salacious aspects of the story and not the substantive aspects.

    The simple fact is that John McCain and Barack Obama have pretty much gotten a free ride from the media, and Hillary Clinton has been routinely hammered. It looks like McCain’s ride may be ending. If so, I’d like for the scrutiny to be substantive and not riddled with the innuendo we’ve seen so far.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 29, 2008 at 0953 hrs


  9. mamma- The definition of “natural born citizen” when determining eligibility to be a president has never been tested in front of the courts.  In the past, it has been referred to having to have been born on United States’ territory, but lately I have seen references to be born to citizens.  I disagree with the second version. 

    It is an interesting argument, but one that does not pertain to McCain since he was born on US territory, the Panama Canal Zone.  At the time, it was just like Guam or Puerto Rico are now.  If he had been born at US Navy Hospital Naples he would not be eligible.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 01, 2008 at 1308 hrs


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