"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

[edhopper]

Can be said daily about the whole GOP, individually and as a group.

[KingCharlemagne]

1. Please allow me to be your First Rec for what I hope is a long and illustrious thread thereof - nt

[Betty Karlson]

4. I second (third?) that sentiment. eom

[unblock]

2. they still question obama's citizenship even after running mclame against him -- born in panama!

[merrily]

3. ....

Origins of the claims

During the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential primaries, anonymous e-mails from supporters of Hillary Clinton surfaced that questioned Obama's citizenship in an attempt to revive Clinton's faltering primary election campaign. These and numerous other chain e-mails during the subsequent presidential election circulated false rumors about Obama's origin, religion and birth certificate. [25] [26]

Jim Geraghty of the conservative website National Review Online may have sparked further speculation on June 9, 2008, when he asked that Obama release his birth certificate.[27][28] Geraghty wrote that releasing his birth certificate could debunk several false rumors circulating on the Internet, namely: that his middle name was originally Muhammad rather than Hussein; that his mother had originally named him "Barry" rather than "Barack"; and that Barack Obama, Sr. was not his biological father, as well as the rumor that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen.[28][29][30]

In October 2009, anonymous e-mails circulated claiming that the Associated Press (AP) had reported Obama was "Kenyan-Born".[31] The claims were based on an AP story that had appeared five years earlier in a Kenyan publication, The Standard.[31][32] The rumor-checking website Snopes.com found that the headline and lead-in sentence describing Obama as born in Kenya and misspelling his first name had been added by the Kenyan newspaper, and did not appear in the story issued by the AP or in any other contemporary newspaper that picked up the AP story.[31][33]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories#Origins_of_the_claims

McCain was born on a military base. Congress passed a bill stating McCain was a citizen. AFAIK, Congress didn't do the same for Obama. However, the requirement comes from the Constitution, which says the President has to be "natural born citizen." The Constitution empowers Congress to make laws about naturalization and citizenship, but not to interpret the Constiution to decide what constitutes a "natural born" citizen. So, it's a Supreme Court issue, not a Congressional issue.

Moot now as to McCain and Obama, but might come up again re: Cruz.

[Volaris]

14. accepted precedent (as far as I know) is that as long as you are the child of an American Parent,

It don't matter if you were born on Mars.
Cruz had AN American parent at the time of his birth? Fine, he can run.
Because if it's Ted fucking Cruz and that's the best argument we can put up, we deserve to lose the presidency.

[merrily]

15. Actually, there is zero SCOTUS precedent. There is only a bit of nonbinding verbiage in one

SCOTUS opinion that being born in the US means you are a "natural born citizen" and that said nothing about the citizenship of either parent. (Remember the standards for citizenship in general are not necessarily the same as the Constitutional standard of "natural born citizen." Congress can decide the former; the SCOTUS is the only authoritative word on the latter as to the POTUS.)

Even though that SCOTUS verbiage was only a dictum, people inferred that being born outside the US might mean that one is not a "natural born citizen" for purposes of qualifying for the Presidency. On the flip side, also inferred from that dictum that, if someone WAS born in the US, parents' citizenship is irrelevant. The latter does make sense since, just before the constitution was adopted, no one was a US citizen and the parents of a lot of the population were immigrants. For example, Paul Revere's dad was a French citizen, yet I feel sure Revere would have been allowed to run for President.

AFAIK, the election of 2008 was the first time this became such an issue at the level it did, even though we apparently have had at least one President born in Canada. I cannot swear to this, but, IIRC, neither of his parents were US citizens, at least not at the time of his birth. Mostly, we seem to have pretty much ignored the issue, until people inside the Clinton primary campaign of 2008 birthed the birther issue as to Obama.

While I do not approve in the least of what was done during the 2008 primary or how it was done, I also do not approve of ignoring any provision of the Constitution. I think someone should check something before a candidate for POTUS is allowed to get on primary ballots.

It's too bad our Supreme Court decided it should not give advisory opinions. It would be nice to have a clear standard before someone is ensconced in the Oval Office and we have to start wondering if all his or her Executive Orders and all the bills he or she signed are actually valid under the Constitution.

I do agree that Cruz is probably OK, but not because we have any SCOTUS precedent interpreting the wording in Article II of the Constitution that requires the President to be a "natural born citizen."

[Volaris]

16. Cool.

Thanks for the info.

[merrily]

17. You're most welcome. I had looked into it a lot during the 2008 primary.

[Enthusiast]

5. K&R! This post deserves hundreds of recommendations!

Excellent!

[edhopper]

6. Thanks

It just rings so true for me.

[libdem4life]

7. This is one of those cases where the question is so obvious that it contains the answer.

[edhopper]

8. Where are the Edward Murrows and

Welch's of today?

[libdem4life]

10. What's worse is that I remember them!

[hifiguy]

9. Good thing that Bernie and Martin have a bit of Joseph Welch in them.

The Greedy Old Pig party is an open-air lunatic asylum with the inmates in charge.

[CTyankee]

11. I think of that speech so often when I see what is being said by the GOP on so many

subjects...and I see that black and white image over an over again in my mind...

I guess one has to be old like me...

[edhopper]

12. I'm a little younger

but that was part of the culture growing up.
These days, nothing a politician says is grounds for shame, At least for Republicans.

[CTyankee]

13. yes...sad, but true...