He’s An American Citizen!

By Zach Foster

The author of this article did not vote for Barack Obama in 2008.  Nonetheless, the author is aware that Obama won the election fair and square and has been the President for two years.  Yet the question of his citizenship persists in the minds of his political opponents and their followers.  One can honestly conclude that had Barack Obama lost the election, all questions of his citizenship would have faded into oblivion.  Conservatives would have been delighted to have Sarah Palin as Vice President, and possibly as President in 2016.  After all this imagining, the fact still remains that Barack Obama is the President.  Furthermore, John McCain does not plan to run again, and Sarah Palin respectfully declined her supporters’ offers to turn her into a Presidential candidate in her own right.

So why are people still screaming and gnashing their teeth over the question of Barack Obama’s citizenship?  His political opponents seem hell-bent on proving that he is a citizen of Kenya, that he was NOT born in the United States, that he is the prince of darkness, etc.  Perhaps, in the minds of many, if they can generate enough doubt about his citizenship or somehow prove that he isn’t an American citizen, then his Presidency will be null and void and Barack will be booted back to Chicago, Hawaii, or even Kenya.  Regardless of their sentiments, they need to take certain things into consideration.

A report from Snopes confirmed his Certificate of Live Birth from Honolulu County as legitimate.  Barack Hussein Obama II, the President, was born to Ann Dunham and Barack Obama I on the island of Oahu.  The last time the author checked, Hawaii is a United State.  Let’s pretend for a moment that perhaps the certificate is a forgery and the President really was born in Kenya.  By the legal clause of jus sanguinis (right by blood), a child born to at least one American citizen also qualifies as natural-born.  Though Barack I was a Kenyan tribal prince, Ann Dunham was a U.S. citizen.

Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican House Majority leader, stated that he is confident the President is a U.S. citizen and the question of his citizenship needs to be dismissed because it distracts Americans from focusing on the issues.  On the eve of the State of the Union address, this is more true than ever.  The author of this article completely agrees with Representative Cantor.  It is understandable that Americans would disagree with or even distrust the President.  However, let us neither measure him nor judge him by our prejudices and preconceived notions, but rather by his performance and the mistakes he makes in office.

This does beg the question, though: if Obama’s presidency does somehow become null and void, would conservatives feel any more secure with Joe Biden as President?