It Begins: WND Challenging Marco Rubio's Eligibility to Be President

His parents were in the US as legal residents, and he was born here, but the Birthers are claiming that the bullshit they made up with respect to Barack Obama -- that natural born citizen means, of course, born of two American citizen parents -- should also apply with equal stupidity to Marco Rubio, lest their stupidities be exposed as inconsistently applied.

This supposedly is some people's claim about what the "Constitution" (I use the quotes deliberately) means, right?

And they say "Obviously, it must mean born of two citizen parents," right? (Actually, in the strong form, the Birthers even claim "natural born citizen" means "born of two parents who are each themselves also natural born citizens").

I have a question for these "Constitutional" scholars.

Most of the time they say they plain text of the "Constitution" should carry.

Okay.

Um, from where in the Consitution do you get that idea that "natural born citizen" is really supposed to mean "second generation citizen" or "natural born citizen in turn born of two natural born citizens"?

If they meant to say "second generation American citizen," why did they not use those words? Now I do not know if the idiomatic "second generation" existed as a phrase in the 1780s, but there are many different ways to communicate that idea.

Instead they used three words -- "Natural born citizen," which seems to imply a citizen whose citizenship is by birth and not by legal operation or the naturalization

But I'm reliably informed that when they used these words they really meant "second generation citizen" or "born of two natural born citizen parents," and yet apparently didn't feel like writing in plain English and so made a muddle of things.

Is that about right?

Some national news media are declaring that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is a natural-born citizen and thus eligible for the presidency or vice presidency, even though Rubio's constitutional eligibility remains unclear and the popular Florida Republican has himself downplayed any interest in running on a White House ticket.

In a Daily Caller piece today titled "Coming soon: Rubio 'birthers,'" journalist Matt Lewis warns, "There is already a movement afoot (led by some on the fringe) to disqualify him from serving as president (which would presumably disqualify him from serving as vice president). That's right – some are arguing that Rubio is not eligible because he is not a 'natural-born citizen.'"

Lewis explains the logic by citing a May 22 WND report examining the issue, which noted, "While the Constitution does not define 'natural-born citizen,' there is strong evidence that the Founding Fathers understood it to mean someone born of two American citizens."

"Born of two American citizens" is easily enough to write out. It's pithy. Unambiguous.

And yet they didn't write that.

Oh well, maybe they were just fucking dummies or something.

Clarifying Quotation:

Few bloggers have been bigger pussies on the issue than you Ace. What did 'natural born citizen' mean to the framers, tough guy? You sound like Pelosi when she was questioned on the constitutionality of Obamacare.

What the Rubio pushers like you have in common with the Chris Matthews set is worship of the brown/black because you are not a believing Christian. You replaced one religion with another.

Posted by: ccruse456

I'm very comfortable being in opposition to you, ccruse.

I would think less of myself if I found myself to be on your side.

posted by Ace at 03:43 PM

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