What media bias?
So, there are these stupid allegations that Barack Hawaii Five-O Obama may not have been born in America and, therefore, is not a citizen and cannot run for president. So, they asked for a birth certificate. One showed up. Allegations were it was fake since it looked like it came from Dan Rather’s HP printer. Smart people realize that, gasp!, maybe the state of Hawaii, like most places, has document retrieval technology. So, basically, no big deal. And, honestly, pretty fucking stupid if you ask me.
And a while back there was speculation that McCain being born in Panama was also excluded from running for president. This claim was equally fucking stupid.
The difference in the two is that there was actually considerable press time devoted to the fucking stupid story about John McCain. And the only mention of the fucking stupid story about Obama is on some right wing blogs.
Update: In comments, it was said that there are actually two federal cases to disqualify McCain. Interesting. I have not read about those.
June 19th, 2008 at 10:27 am
He can’t be the President.
He can run for it all he wants….
June 19th, 2008 at 10:53 am
The *other* difference: Baseless allegations that a candidate is lying about his birthplace are laughable. A legal dispute as to whether a candidate’s Panama birthplace qualifies him as a “natural-born” citizen is actually somewhat interesting from a civics point of view.
Put it this way: a legal challenge to Obama’s candidacy on the basis that his birth certificate is too high quality gets tossed out of court. A legal challenge to McCain’s status as “natural born” goes to the supreme court. McCain would win that legal battle pretty easily, but it *is* weighty enough that a judge would have to write on it.
I know you folks love to crow about media bias, but seriously, you gotta stop finding it every time you look under your beds at night.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:09 am
awww I can just feel the love from Hugger!
June 19th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Ah, I *do* actually like Uncle. Everybody thinks the media is biased against them. And they’re all right. But once we start looking for the bias, we see it everywhere, even when it’s imaginary.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I’m gonna disagree there, BH. the mccain thing is equally as stupid.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Maybe it’s because I’m a lawyer, but I found the McCain thing interesting and newsworthy. It was the topic of much lunchtime conversation. I guess it’s possible the things law nerds find fascinating and topical strike everybody else as stupid.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
There are still some pretty significant chain of custody issues and document discrepancies that haven’t been answered with the graphic that is being sent around. I’m pretty sure that what is being passed around is a forgery. On the other hand, I don’t think that we would see anything significantly different on the authentic document.
This really is a case of fake but accurate.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Maybe I’m missing something, but I thought that with McCain it was determined that since his parents were American Citizens, he was a natural born American regardless of whether he was born in Panama or any where else. Since it really isn’t in dispute that Obama’s mother was an American Citizen, it would also follow that Obama was a natural born American no matter where he was physically born.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Generally, if you’re born to military or diplomatic parents, you count as an American no matter where you are born. (And Manish is probably correct. I think I read that two American parents convey citizenship upon a child no matter where it is born.)
June 19th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Actually there are two federal cases working through the courts to disqualify McCain. This point has never been litigated before, so don’t be too sure that some judge won’t issue a ruling disqualifying McCain.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Doing some googling….
Paratrooper is right..there is no precedent. Also, current law is that a foreign born person with one parent as a US Citizen is a US Citizen, but they have to physically enter the US for their citizenship to actually be bestowed. IIRC, at one time a foreign born child had Citizenship conferred automatically upon birth, but it lead to this situation that a US Citizen would move abroad and then have kids. Then these kids were US Citizens, even though many had no real connection to the US and had no intention of living there, but the IRS would hunt them down to pay their taxes and they were technically subject to the draft and what not.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Aren’t US military bases US soil? And on top of that at the time of McCain’s birth wasn’t the Canal Zone US Soil as well?
I mean can’t somebody born in Guam or Peurto Rico become President as well?
June 19th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Phelps, why would somebody forge a birth certificate with accurate information?
June 19th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
im more interested in something else… did the man that his mother married in Indonesia make her take his name and become an Indonesian citizen… things like that are quite common in that area of the world… so Obama would have done the same… which means that his last name might legally be Seotero and he’s an Indonesian citizen… if he renounced his Indonesian citizenship at age 18 to become an American again, that would make him naturalized not natural born…