June 5, AD 2010
Frankly Speaking
Current Events Commentaries from a Biblical Perspective
by Frank Allnutt

Could Obama Silence the Birthers?

The Birther movement continues to sail along a course of garnering growing support of its legal challenges to Barack Obama’s Constitutional eligibility to serve as president. But with help from Congress and enough states to amend the Constitution, Obama could scuttle the Birthers’ ship with a single stroke of a pen.

The target of such action would be Section 1, Article Two of the U.S. Constitution which sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Birthers contend, among other things, that Obama could be hiding secrets that pose potential damage to his legitimacy as president. Reports are that Obama has spent more than two million dollars in legal fees to keep his legit long-form birth certificate, education records and some other background documents locked from public view.

Eligibility question is not unique
Obama is not the first to have his eligibility questioned. Of the many others, Wikipedia lists some of the most recognizable names:

Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886), 21st president of the United States, was rumored to have been born in Canada.

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948), candidate for president. His father, a British citizen, was not yet naturalized at the time of Hughes’ birth.

George Romney (1907–1995), who ran for the Republican party presidential nomination in 1968, was born in Mexico to U.S. parents. Romney’s grandfather emigrated to Mexico in 1886 with his three wives and children after Utah outlawed polygamy. Romney’s monogamous parents retained their U.S. citizenship and returned to the United States with him in 1912. Romney never received Mexican citizenship, because the country’s nationality laws had been restricted to jus-sanguinis statutes (by which citizenship is determined by ancestry, not location of birth) due to prevailing politics aimed against American settlers.

Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) was born in Phoenix, in what was then the incorporated Arizona Territory of the United States.

Lowell Weicker (born 1931), the former Connecticut Senator, Representative, and Governor, entered the race for the Republican party presidential nomination of 1980 but dropped out before voting in the primaries began. He was born in Paris, France to parents who were U.S. citizens. His father was an executive for E. R. Squibb & Sons and his mother was the Indian-born daughter of a British general.

Roger Calero (born 1969) was born in Nicaragua and ran as the Socialist Worker’s Party presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008. In 2008, Calero appeared on the ballot in Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Vermont.

John McCain (born 1936), who ran for the Republican party presidential nomination in 2000 and was the Republican nominee in 2008, was born of two U.S. citizen parents at the Colon Hospital in Colon, Republic of Panama.

According to Wikipedia, more than two dozen proposed constitutional amendments have been introduced in Congress to relax the restriction on natural born citizenship.

Two of the more well known were introduced by Representative Jonathan Bingham in 1974, to allow for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to become eligible, and the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment by Senator Orrin Hatch in 2003, to allow presidential eligibility for Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Bingham amendment also would have clarified the eligibility of those born abroad to U.S. parents. The Hatch amendment would have given eligibility to those who have been naturalized citizens for at least 20 years.

There are two ways to amend the U.S. Constitution:

1. Proposal by two-thirds of both houses and ratification by three-fourths of the states, then ratification by special Constitutional Conventions ("ConCons") in three-fourths of the states.
   
   
2. Proposal by special ConCon called by two-thirds of state legislatures and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.
   

Oversight or political timing?
Why didn’t Obama push for that when he was at the height of his popularity almost a year and a half ago? While Democrats then had friendly majorities in both houses of Congress, backing of an adequate number of states was in question.

Blind arrogant optimism for Obama’s popularity to increase could well have been sufficient reason to reserve the push for an amendment until the political scene turned even more favorable. But that was a risky gamble that didn’t pay off because the political winds are shifting away from Obama.

So, it’s decision time for the Obama team.

A push now would likely end in defeat, and Obama has already had too many set-backs lately. To wait till the presidential campaign is in full swing is again a gamble: can the Obama team whip disgruntled Dems in Congress back into submission and support? And can they shore up their voter support base by winning back the disillusioned?

Will the political winds shift again, in favor of Obama? In time for the November elections? In time for the 2012 presidential election? Baseball great Yogi Berra could just as well have been speaking of elections when he said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

Could Birthers hold off a ConCon?
Now let’s shift our focus back to the Birthers and address the question: Could birthers hold off a ConCon?

Birthers take a clear and strong stand for the letter of the law regarding presidential eligibility. And rightly so; it is the responsibility of everyone in America to do so. And that includes Christians, provided that the letter and spirit of the law do not contravene the laws and will of God. (Read The Manhatten Declaration.)

Most people know the Birther movement came into being to use the law as a means to depose Obama from the presidency. Obviously, if Obama were a conservative Republican there would be no Birther movement.

But what if the efforts of Birthers continue to be stonewalled and drag on and on? What if Obama beats them to the draw and sounds the charge for amending the presidential eligibility law?

Are Birthers prepared to fend off such an attach? Would they receive significant public backing?

Eligibility then and now
Answers to those questions must be framed in an historical perspective.

Amendment backers could argue that the natural-born citizen clause of the Constitution is no longer relevant. That is because it was originally included to alleviate any fears of potential compromise of a president’s sworn allegiance to America in every aspect—allegiance to the people, the Constitution, the nation’s possessions and other interests, both domestic and foreign.

Today, we see an emerging New World Order and its attendant world views in the social arenas of knowledge and education, economics, politics, and religion. In view of that, a majority of Americans probably would not see sufficient cause for opposing the amendment and, in fact, might be warm to the idea of a naturalized citizen as president. Would that not be in keeping with the concepts of American equality and the country as a melting pot of diverse peoples?

Not a single one of our venerated Founding Fathers was a natural born citizen of the United States. Today, foreign born men of such calibre are not eligible for president.

Is the law too restrictive?
Ultimately, the issue comes down to this: Americans want the best qualified candidates to run for president. And the argument of amendment backers would be that the natural born citizenship requirement is too restrictive and therefore must be amended.

It is conceivable that a foreign born presidential candidate might otherwise be more qualified than one who is natural born. Example: A foreign born, naturalized citizen who has lived in America since the age of two months versus a natural born citizen who lived in a foreign country for all but the last 14 years.

Ah, but there is more to it: The Constitution’s presidential eligibility requirements are blind to ethnicity and religion...but many voters are not.

What if a natural born citizen presidential candidate lived much of his life in an Islamic nation and was a life-long Muslim? That is not a Constitutional issue, but in today’s politically-charged climate it would certainly political, cultural, and religious issues.

Issues beyond the law
And the Birther movement is a case in point. Some believe Obama is a Muslim at heart, though he professes to be a Christian. Some are concerned that his cultural upbringing outside the continental United States, coupled with a liberal education and Progressive ideology, bring into question his allegiance to America—past, present, and future. And there are those who believe he either is or perhaps could be the Antichrist.

From a practical standpoint, some Birthers could reason that if the amendment should pass and Obama gets a second term, then why bother to kick him out of office for the little time that would remain in his first term?

To Birthers, America cannot risk putting up with Obama until 2012 when a hoped-for enlightened electorate could deny him a second term. Meanwhile, the urgency of the matter recognizes only one reasonable alternative at this time: to hopefully prove Obama’s ineligibility to be president and therefore bring about his removal from office.

But the Birthers must also recognize the urgent need to prepare to head off any possible attempt to amend the Constitution in a way that would allow a foreign born and naturalized citizen to run for president. And that means convincing a majority of voters that the necessity of a president’s being a natural born citizen is no less relevant today than it was when the Constitution was drafted.

And the “Great American Experiment” continues.

_______________

©Copyright AD2010 Frank Allnutt. All rights reserved. Content herein may be quoted, subject to the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. Copyright Law.

For an absolutely free subscription to Frankly Speaking, simply Contact us. You will be taken to another page and asked to provide your name and email address. Then type "Subscribe" in both the Subject field and the Message field.

Please report any problems with this site to the web master.