John McCain...Not Eligible?

And you think that all I did today is work? Hah!

This morning I was roped into a conversation with some very conservative colleagues who were discussing whether John McCain is actually eligible to run for President because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Here's the full story in the New York Times.

At issue is the interpretation of Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5 of the U.S. Constitution:

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.

*snip*

My feeling is that he is eligible. He was born to American parents in a territory, which at the time, was under the control and laws of the United States federal government. I prefer the looser interpretation for quite selfish reasons. Despite my very "American" birthplace, I am of Puerto Rican descent, and should a viable Puerto Rican-born Presidential candidate emerge sometime in the future, I would hate to see that person excluded because of some "strict" interpretation of the term "natural born."

However, my intent in raising this issue is not to further this idiotic debate of McCain's citizenship. Nor is it to endorse McCain's Presidential candidacy in any way shape or form. After all, what am I supposed to think of a former POW who was tortured by the North Vietnamese Army and was outspoken against torture, who then goes and votes against limiting the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the U.S. Army Field manual? This is not the same as Hillary Clinton changing her mind about the Iraq War. Not by a long shot.

What I want to know is why, all of a sudden, is John McCain's candidacy being vilified over his eligibility as a citizen? More importantly, who's behind it? Is he being swift-boated by his own peeps? It seems that way. Yesterday, DCup of Politits posted this missive on American Street about how the neo-cons, who once supported McCain, are now stabbing him in the back because he has disavowed their attack tactics on Democratic candidates. Et tu, Bill Cunningham? Indeed.

But there's more to it than that. Distributorcap has a great post up about the latest attacks on Obama, which alludes to a similar question of loyalty. In Obama's case, the question surrounds his Muslim-sounding middle name (Hussein) and the implication that, as President, he would be overly-sympathetic to Muslim terrorists at the expense of American security. In other words, he's disloyal. It appears that this new form of swift-boating of both the presumptive Republican and Democratic candidates is attempting to scare Americans into answering these insidious questions:

Do we trust a non-natural born or Muslim-named person to be President of the United States?

Given their pedigree, can they keep their promise to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States?"

You and I know this is a bullshit, straw man argument. Apparently, the neo-con sect of the GOP doesn't think so. Here's a story in the Washington Post that seems to make this point. You decide.

My opinion is that the neo-cons are trying to tear down McCain because his campaign team sees them as a liability. Sure, he supports the war in Iraq and is willing to trade our Constitutional freedoms for the delusion of greater security. But could it be that McCain is repudiating their brand of "true authoritarianism", as DCup wrote? Could it be that he is seeing the light of what 8 years under Bush II has done to this country and is positioning himself -- ever so slightly -- as a different sort of Republican?

If I were on the McCain campaign team, I'd take seriously the President's 19 percent approval rating and stories like this one on the AP Wire that say the economy has slowed to a near crawl. While it's a long shot that John McCain will successfully walk the entire length of this tight rope and become President, given the current economic and political climate against the Bush Administration, I'd be distancing myself from the neo-cons, too.

Naturally, they're not very happy about this, and have exponentially ratcheted up their petulance in the form of this eligibility challenge. They'll do whatever they can to give even the staunchest McCain supporters pause, because the alternative is the loss of political power. They could be relegated back to the marginal place in the American political sphere they occupied in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and they don't like the prospect of this one bit. Can you imagine a world where Ann Coulter's 500-page rants are not on the New York Times bestseller list? They can't.

I wish all of you could have been flies on the wall while my two colleagues politely (imagine that) argued this point. I could not help but be drawn in because it was rather loud. What amazed me was how easily these two seemingly, intelligent, audit professionals could not see what was going on here.

Both are Republicans who will likely support McCain come November, should he be chosen as the Republican nominee. But to quote one of my colleagues, "I prefer a stricter interpretation of the Constitution. And if McCain is ineligible, he should not be allowed to run." If you're keeping score folks, give this round to the neo-cons because that's precisely the skewed logic they want prospective McCain voters to see.

On the one hand, it makes me laugh to see this GOP infighting happening. Shit, it's downright Democratic. However, I am waiting with bated breath to see if McCain caves and takes another swig of the neo-con Kool-Aid and gets back on message. After all, if he could change his mind on the issue of torture, there's no telling what he might do in response to this attack on his status as natural born American.

Okay, I've taken too much of your time. Get back to fucking work!!!!