Reply #27: Many RW shocked that McCain born in Panama itself, not Canal Zone or on base [View All]

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The discovery that McCain was not born on base, or even in the Canal Zone, but in a hospital in Panama itself, was quickly becoming a big issue on RW Repubs during the primaries because it raised serious questions about whether McCain actually met the "natural born" requirement of the Constitution. Until his birth certificate from the hospital was uncovered, the argument had been that McCain had been born at a place (the CZ, the base) under US jurisdicition re NB.

The Huckabee supporters were particularly aggressive on this. That was when the focus on Obama and his BC really heated up. Remember the symbolic Senate resolution supporting that each was qualified as NB.

While Obama could easily have ended nearly all the BC BS by requesting the release of a copy from his hospital (in Hawaii, of course), he chose not to, most likely so that it would continue as an issue for a vocal group on the right that would crazier and more racist the longer it festered.

It also kept attention away from the many real issues with Obama's life story, its impossible timeline, and its clever misdirection away from some less-easily-dismissed questions. For example, his mother did not just move to Seattle immediately after BO was born, she had grown up there since middle school. It also seems unlikely that BO and his mother ever lived with his father in Hawaii or anywhere else. These things aren't relevant to this discussion, not very important overall, though I fully expected them in the GE.