They Finally Got a Big One Right

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court intelligently decided against a further review the Leo Donofrio case which I discussed in my previous posting. (There are two other cases pending, including Philip Berg's.) In a response posted on his blog regarding the Supreme Court's decision, Donofrio makes no apologies for his ridiculous lawsuit. In fact, he actually states that President-elect Barack Obama should have been aware of the fact that, if he were elected President, "the dam would be broken and the waters of foreign influence would be forever capable of drowning our national sovereignty and placing our military in the hands of enemies from within". Being a little melodramatic, are we?

Despite Donofrio's absurd ramblings, I will say that I am delighted by the fact that Donofrio also named John McCain (as well as the candidate from the Socialist Workers Party) in his lawsuit. Why McCain? Well, McCain was born at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. And after "The New York Times" published a report in February of this year questioning McCain's status as a natural born citizen and, in turn, his eligibility to run for President, the United States Senate actually went out of its way and unanimously passed a bipartisan non-binding resolution in April which declared that McCain satisfied the qualifications for the presidency. The resolution was introduced by Tom Coburn (R-OK), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and was supported ironically by Obama, Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Jim Webb (D-VA).

With that being said, a subpoena was filed in U.S. District Court in April by Fred Hollander, requesting McCain's birth certificate. The Department of Homeland Security, which administers citizenship services, declined to provide copies of the document because supposedly the subpoena was improperly served. Curiously enough, no record exists of McCain's birth in the birth registers of the Health Department of the Panama Canal. In addition, a search of the "child born abroad" records of the U.S. consular service from August 1936 included numerous U.S. citizens born in the Panama Canal Zone but without any mention of McCain.

Theodore Olson, the former Solicitor General under Mr. Bush, and Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, studied the case at the request of the McCain campaign. Olson and Tribe cited a 1986 Supreme Court ruling which stated that the United States exercised sovereignty (which certainly lacks absoluteness) over the Panama Canal Zone between 1904 and 1979. However, a policy manual from the Department of State clearly disagrees: "Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth."

After re-reading the information above, it amazes me that Obama's background is being scrutinized to such an extent by individuals clearly not qualified to do so. But what is even more amazing is the fact that, since the presidential race has already been decided, McCain has not publicly come to Obama's defense. Considering the fact that Obama (and 4 other Democrats) supported that bulls--t resolution in February, it is obvious that McCain once again does not have the stones to be a real man. That shouldn't be a surprise to many because he has proven this fact during his military career, as a member of Congress and on the campaign trail.