Yes, Barack, you are a natural-born citizen
A Facebook friend of mine recently pinged me with a question regarding Barack Obama’s eligibility to be President of the United States. This question stems from a lawsuit filed by Philip J. Berg, the fundamentals of which are summarized in this video (use hyperlink if video does not appear embedded below).
(I’m sure there are other copies of this “film” on YouTube that are of better quality, but this is the one I was referred to and I’m sure as hell not going to waste my time searching for better ones.)
For those of you not foolish enough to spend 10 minutes watching this nonsense, the thrust is as follows:
- Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii, as his campaign web site states, but rather in Kenya.
- Even if he had been born in Hawaii, he would have had to renounce or revoke his citizenship in order to attend school in Indonesia.
I am not a lawyer, but here is my take on this:
- Even if the Obama campaign is lying and he was not born in Hawaii, he is still a natural-born citizen. His parents were married when he was born (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524-3,00.html). A child born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth. (http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html).
- The stuff about Obama losing his citizenship by going to school in Indonesia is HIGHLY speculative, and I seriously doubt that U.S. law allows a non-citizen step-parent to irrevocably revoke a minor child’s citizenship. And given John McCain’s own questionable claim to natural-born citizenship, I’m sure that all reasonable people would agree to a “good-good” settlement of this matter.
Let’s not have to have this argument again. Let’s approve the “Schwarzenegger Amendment” and move on.
