BORN IN THE USA? McCain vs Obama

BORN IN THE USA?

Meet McCain 'birthers': ABC, CBS, NBC, FactCheck, N.Y. Times, more

Eligibility issue was huge in 2008 when Obama opponent was focus of attention

Posted: March 08, 2010
9:30 pm Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Many of the same news organizations and research groups today dismissing concerns about Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility were far more eager to cover the issue when Republican presidential candidate John McCain was the subject.

An archive search shows the question of McCain's birth certificate and his eligibility to be president was actively pursued by Democratic Party activists and the mainstream media in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, despite the ridicule now heaped upon those questioning Obama's qualifications under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

In an article published Feb. 28, 2008, months before McCain was nominated for president by the Republican Party, FactCheck.org, at the very center of Obama's defense against eligibility questions, was itself raising them about McCain.

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In a piece that led off with the question, "How can Panamanian-born McCain be elected president?" FactCheck.org conceded McCain did meet the natural-born citizen requirements. But the website qualified its answer, stating that if McCain did win the presidency, the issue could be challenged in court.

After the Republican and Democratic conventions, on, FactCheck.org weighed into the Obama eligibility debate Aug. 21, 2008," claiming its "staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate." The certificate in question, however, was a short-form Certification of Live Birth, or COLB, not a hospital-generated long-form birth certificate listing the hospital where Obama was born as well as other relevant birth information, including the name of the attending physician.

Almost coincident with the FactCheck.org article, a flurry of mainstream media news pieces popped up about McCain's eligibility to be president.

On Feb. 28, 2008, Carl Hulse wrote a New York Times article, "McCain's Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out."

"To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states," Hulse wrote.

 

Picking up on the Times piece, MSNBC.com ran a feature on the same day posing the question, "Born in the USA?"

The Wall Street Journal the same day published a Law Blog column asking: "Does John McCain Have a Birthplace Problem?"

CBS News speculated McCain's eligibility question "could conceivably end up in before the Supreme Court," adding the comment, "And you thought counting chads was a circus."

The next day, the Times of London published a similar piece, "McCain's Panama birth prompts eligibility probe by his campaign."

NBC correspondent Pete Williams also published a piece Feb. 29, 2008, on the MSNBC website, "McCain's citizenship called into question."

"Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his advisers are doing their best to brush aside questions – raised in the liberal blogosphere – about whether he is qualified under the Constitution to be president," Williams wrote. "But many legal scholars and government lawyers say it's a serious question with no clear answer."

On April 10, 2008, ABC reporter Jake Tapper published a piece on the ABC News website in which he noted the Constitution "does not define 'natural born citizen,'" pointing out that "McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone to parents who were U.S. citizens, but some scholars have questioned that it suffices."

Then, on April 11, 2008, the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog published a piece noting that Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced a non-binding resolution expressing McCain qualifies as a natural-born citizen under terms of the Constitution.

The Leahy-McCaskill resolution, ultimately passed by the Senate unanimously was co-sponsored by Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who at the time were competing for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

Even this was not enough to stop liberal activists and the mainstream media from continuing to keep alive questions about McCain's eligibility.

In a Washington Post story May 2, 2008, reporter Michael Dobbs questioned whether the Senate's unanimously passed resolution was sufficient to settle the matter of whether McCain was a natural-born citizen eligible to be president.

Dismissing the Senate resolution, Dobbs wrote that the Senate vote "is simply an opinion that has little bearing on an arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars for many weeks."

Dobbs noted at the time the article was published "three pending cases are challenging McCain's right to be president" because even though both his parents were U.S. citizens, his father was in the Navy, and McCain was born at the U.S. Naval Station based in Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone on Aug. 29, 1939.

While acknowledging that a senior official of the McCain campaign had shown reporters a copy of McCain's birth certificate issued by the Canal Zone hospital – something the Obama presidential campaign and presidency have so far refused to do – he questioned why McCain did not release the birth certificate to the press generally.

In addition to media scrutiny, McCain testified before a U.S. Senate committee and produced his long-form birth certificate for inspection.

On May 12, 2008, PolitiFact.com, a website that has dismissed questions about Obama's eligibility, published an article authored by Robert Farley, "Was McCain born in the USA?"

Noting that the question of McCain's eligibility is "rooted in legal opinions," not in facts, PolitiFact.org begged off giving McCain's eligibility question a truth rating, claiming its "customary True-False ratings don't quite fit here."

PolitiFact repeated the Washington Post complaint that McCain had not released his hospital-generated birth certificate publicly, opting instead to "let a Washington Post reporter take a peek at it."

PolitiFact, however, did not note that the Obama campaign refused all inquiries asking to see the Illinois senator's hospital-generated long-form birth certificate.

PolitiFact also dismissed congressional resolutions affirming McCain's eligibility to be president as a natural-born citizen, quoting Atlanta attorney Jill Pryor, who wrote a 20-year-old paper published in the Yale Law Journal in which she argued that Congress' interpretation of the natural-born citizen clause is not binding on the courts.

On June 12, 2008, the left-leaning DailyKos.com posted a piece by blogger "andyfoland", "The Bombshell on McCain's Birth Certificate," claiming McCain had "no interest in releasing his birth certificate" because he "actually wasn't born in the United States," and "McCain has done a good job keeping the public at large from catching on that he was born in Panama."

On June 20, 2008, editorial writer Tod Robberson wrote in a Dallas Morning News opinion blog that McCain's citizenship was "still in question," after a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District courts questioning the issue.

Displaying what he claimed was a copy of McCain's hospital-generated long-form birth certificate, Robberson wrote, "The argument is very strong against McCain being regarded 'a natural-born' citizen' as required by law."

Why?

"[McCain] was born in Panama in 1936, at a time when the State Department and the Hay-Bunau Treaty, which granted the U.S. access to the Panama Canal Zone, specifically stated that the Canal Zone was not sovereign U.S. territory," Robberson argued.

To drive home the point, a link in Robberson's piece displayed as a .pdf file the lawsuit papers filed by plaintiff Fred Hollander in the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire questioning McCain's eligibility.

The New York Times returned once again to McCain's eligibility in a July 11, 2008, article published by law reporter Adam Liptak, with contributions from Carl Hulse, "A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth Issue."

The New York Times featured an analysis by University of Arizona law professor Gabriel J. Chin that asserted a 1937 law conferred citizenship on children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904, arguing the law made John McCain a citizen just before his first birthday.

"In his paper and in an interview, Professor Chin, a registered Democrat, insisted he had no political motive in raising the question," the Times wrote.

UPI published a story July 11, 2008, under the headline "McCain not natural-born citizen, prof says," repeating the New York Times story about Gabriel Chin's legal analysis.

A lawsuit challenging McCain's qualifications was pending in a federal court in Concord, N.H., the UPI story noted.

Newsbuster.org characterized Liptak's New York Times article as "a meaningless, but prominently placed, 900-word story to further chip away at John McCain's stature," noting the New York Times had yet to publish an article discussing Internet questioning about Obama's eligibility.

In July 2008, Snopes.com, which portrays itself as an independent fact-checker, classified as "undetermined" the claim that John McCain does not qualify to be president as a natural-born citizen.

"As much as we'd like to dismiss this one as just another frivolous election season rumor, it's impossible to make any definitive statement about Senator McCain's presidential eligibility because the issue is a matter of law rather than fact, and the law is ambiguous," Snopes.com wrote.

But only one month before, in June 2008, Snopes.com confidently disqualified as "false" the assertion that Barack Obama was not eligible to be president, affirming instead that he was a natural-born citizen within the meaning of Article II, Section 1.

With equal confidence, Snopes.com in the same month dismissed as "false" the claim that the short-form Certification of Live Birth provided by the Obama presidential campaign was a forgery.

On Sept. 18, 2008, after McCain had won the Republican Party presidential nomination, Law.com reported a San Francisco federal judge ruled McCain's assertion of U.S. citizenship was "highly probable."

Third-party presidential candidate Alan Keyes was excoriated for bringing a federal lawsuit challenging Obama's eligibility, but as the Law.com article pointed out, Keyes had also brought the U.S. District court challenge of McCain's eligibility.

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, the Web continued to buzz with stories questioning McCain's eligibility without reporting similar issues were being raised about Obama.

 

See the spin and the Obama birth certificate story white wash with video.

The Mexican Invasion – By Americans?

Excerpts from:
Mexico's Immigration Law: Let's Try It Here at Home
by J. Michael Waller
05/08/2006

Mexico has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most  Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven’t been sharing that idea with us as they press for our Congress to adopt the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill.

That's too bad, because Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue.

Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.

At a time when the Supreme Court and many politicians seek to bring American law in line with foreign legal norms, its noteworthy that nobody has argued that the U.S. look at how Mexico deals with immigration and what it might teach us about how best to solve
our illegal immigration problem. 

Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:

• in the country legally;
• have the means to sustain themselves economically;
• not destined to be burdens on society;
• of economic and social benefit to society;
• of good character and have no criminal records; and
• contributors to the general well-being of the nation.
  

The law also ensures that:

• immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
• foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
• foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
• foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
• foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
• those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.
  

Who could disagree with such a law?
It makes perfect sense. The Mexican constitution strictly defines the rights of citizens -- and the denial of many fundamental rights to non-citizens, illegal and illegal.

Under the constitution, the Ley General de Población, or
General Law on Population, spells out specifically the country's immigration policy.

It is an interesting law -- and one that should cause us all to ask, Why is our great southern neighbor pushing us to water down our own immigration laws and policies, when its own immigration restrictions are the toughest on the continent?

If a felony is a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, then Mexican law makes it a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.

If the United States adopted such statutes, Mexico no doubt would denounce it as a manifestation of American racism and bigotry.

We looked at the immigration provisions of the Mexican constitution.

[1] Now let's look at Mexico's main immigration law.
Mexico welcomes only foreigners who will be useful to Mexican society:

• Foreigners are admitted into Mexico "according to their possibilities of contributing to national progress." (Article 32
• Immigration officials must "ensure" that "immigrants will be useful elements for the country and that they have the necessary funds for their sustenance" and for their dependents. (Article 34)
• Foreigners may be barred from the country if their presence upsets "the equilibrium of the national demographics," when foreigners are deemed detrimental to "economic or national interests," when they do not behave like good citizens in their own country, when they have broken Mexican laws, and when "they are not found to be physically or mentally healthy." (Article 37)
• The Secretary of Governance may "suspend or prohibit the admission of foreigners when he determines it to be in the national interest." (Article 38)
  Mexican authorities must keep track of every single person in the country:
• Federal, local and municipal police must cooperate with federal immigration authorities upon request, i.e., to assist in the arrests of illegal immigrants. (Article 73)
• A National Population Registry keeps track of "every single individual who comprises the population of the country," and verifies each individual's identity. (Articles 85 and 86)
• A national Catalog of Foreigners tracks foreign tourists and immigrants (Article 87), and assigns each individual with a unique tracking number (Article 91).
  Foreigners with fake papers, or who enter the country under false pretenses, may be imprisoned:
• Foreigners with fake immigration papers may be fined or imprisoned. (Article 116)
• Foreigners who sign government documents "with a signature that is false or different from that which he normally uses" are subject to fine and imprisonment. (Article 116)
  Foreigners who fail to obey the rules will be fined, deported, and/or imprisoned as felons:
• Foreigners who fail to obey a deportation order are to be punished. (Article 117)
• Foreigners who are deported from Mexico and attempt to re-enter the country without authorization can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. (Article 118)
• Foreigners who violate the terms of their visa may be sentenced to up to six years in prison (Articles 119, 120 and 121). Foreigners who misrepresent the terms of their visa while in Mexico -- such as working with out a permit -- can also be imprisoned.
  Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony. The General Law on Population says,
• "A penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of three hundred to five thousand pesos will be imposed on the foreigner who enters the country illegally." (Article 123)
• Foreigners with legal immigration problems may be deported from Mexico instead of being imprisoned. (Article 125)
• Foreigners who "attempt against national sovereignty or security" will be deported. (Article 126)
  Mexicans who help illegal aliens enter the country are themselves considered criminals under the law:
• A Mexican who marries a foreigner with the sole objective of helping the foreigner live in the country is subject to up to five years in prison. (Article 127)
• Shipping and airline companies that bring undocumented foreigners into Mexico will be fined. (Article 132)
  

All of the above runs contrary to what Mexican leaders are demanding of the United States. The stark contrast between Mexico's immigration practices versus its American immigration preaching's is telling. It gives a clear picture of the Mexican government's agenda: to have a one-way immigration relationship with the United States.

Let's call Mexico's bluff on its unwarranted interference in U.S. immigration policy. Let's propose, just to make a point, that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) member nations standardize their immigration laws by using Mexico's own law as a model.
This article was first posted at CenterforSecurityPolicy.org.