Friday, February 29, 2008

Come On!   [Jonah Goldberg]

I love arcane debates over arcana, but John McCain is a US citizen, eligible to be president of the United States. Period. Full stop. The New York Times story that launched this whole discussion was absurd. No one is going to successfully contest McCain's standing (though I'm sure some idiot will try).  Interestingly, and perhaps Mark Kirkorian can educate us on this, the "natural born" language didn't always apply to children born in the United States. I remember reading that Mexican kids born here weren't always automatically granted citizenship. But I would be flabbergasted if there was ever the case that an active duty American military man and his American wife had a natural born baby (i.e. no adoption of someone else's child)  abroad and then the baby was dubbed to be an illegal alien. I'm with Matt Franck and the others who think this whole thing is frivolous nonsense. But, once everyone concedes that, it might still be worth batting around for the fun of it. 

02/29 02:28 PMShare