7 dec 2008

Is Obama "Natural Born"?


Yesterday, we mentioned how insane lawsuits about Barack Obama's natural live birth were creeping like cracked-out, pissed-off kudzu through our court system. One of them is headed to the Supreme Court today. We used words like "clown car," and "macadamia nuts" to discuss the matter, because we wanted to conjure up the appropriate metaphor to describe the ongoing craziness. But hey! We wouldn't want any of our readers to think that Serious Newsmen weren't taking this matter Deadly Seriously. So here's David Shuster and Peter Williams, talking about the matter, breathlessly. Here's my favorite part:
WILLIAMS: The question is what is a natural-born citizen? That's never been legally defined.

Yes! That's because the founders didn't envision the totally batshit citizens we have now! It goes on:
WILLIAMS: The Supreme Court seemed to say a couple of decades ago if you were native born that meant you were a natural born citizen. It's never been conclusively determined. So it's a close question, I guess. You could say it's ambiguous. Most scholars agree that the Supreme Court is not going to weigh in and overturn the votes of 44 million Americans unless it was absolutely crystal clear.