Birthers’ New Argument: “Natual-Born Citizen” Means Both Parents Must Be American

Once again World Net Daily is using itself as a forum to question Barack Obama’s qualifications to be President. Specifically, it is the old birther story with a new twist.

One of the senior reporters at WND, Aaron Klein, has written a book about Obama: “The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists.”

The title covers the subject pretty well, except Klein thinks that he has stumbled onto something big. He states his case that the Founding Fathers considered a “natural-born citizen,” which a President must be, as an American citizen whose parents are both American citizens.

Klein goes on to press the case that the father, in particular, must be a citizen, otherwise the son would have an allegiance to the father’s foreign homeland.

There might be a case to be made for this when women did not have the right to inheritance. To make that argument that one parent is more important than another is to dwell in an archaic tradition that the modern world has long since abandoned.

Let us not forget that in the eighteenth century, slavery was well entrenched and women did not have the right to vote. Even white non-property holders were generally disenfranchised.

If Klein thinks that we should follow the intent of some Founding Fathers, then he may as well write another book arguing for the return of slavery and subjugation of women.

If both parents are supposed to be citizens for an American citizen to be President, then the several American Presidents have questionable qualifications.

There is questionable evidence that James Buchanan’s father, an Irish citizen, ever naturalized.

Chester Arthur’s father was an Irish subject of the United Kingdom who did not get his citizenship until years after Arthur’s birth. There is also evidence that Arthur was born in Canada.

Both Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover had mothers born in foreign countries, England and Canada, respectively. Their citizenship is not in question because nineteenth century law allowed a foreign woman who married an American man to automatically become a citizen.

Again, it is the old sexist tradition that the father has more legal rights than the mother. A foreign male who married an American woman did not get the same consideration. That would have cleared Barack Obama’s parentage if the law read that way.

Basically, Klein is trying to argue for long ago discarded eighteenth and nineteenth century values that are as inappropriate as slavery or tying voting rights to the ownership of property.

If we follow the eighteenth century intent of some Founding Fathers, then Barack Obama would never have been president. They are probably rolling over in their graves with a black man as President. In their world view, he should be picking cotton somewhere in the south under the thumb of an overseer. His parents would never have been allowed to marry. His father would probably have been lynched as well. This is the world where Klein takes his arguments.

If Klein dislikes Obama’s polices, then instead of spending their time on obscure writings from the Founding Fathers and make-believe Kenyan birth certificates, he should just work to defeat Obama in 2012. In place of working with the political system the Founding Fathers helped create, Klein and his cohorts would rather waste their time trying to disenfranchise the millions of Americans who democratically elected Obama president.