According to the Associated Press, the Arizona House on Wednesday approved a bill that would require U.S. presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president. Of course, one of those constitutional requirements is that the candidate must be a natural born citizen, i.e. born in the United States. And, of course, the proposed legislation has at least partly the potential 2012 Obama presidential candidacy in its sights and most likely has its origins with those fringe groups known as “birthers.”
Setting aside the likely unconstitutionality of the proposed law and the fact that this, along with other recent Arizona measures, are making that state “the laughing stock of the nation,” this proposal brings back some memories about the 2008 elections. During those elections, “birthers” were already busy at work trying to chip away at Obama’s “presidential eligibility.” Interestingly enough, there were also some birthers of a different stripe who questioned the birth credentials of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
You see, unlike Barack Obama who was born in Hawaii, one of our 50 states, John McCain was not born in the United States.
McCain’s place of birth became an issue even in Russia.
A March, 2008, Pravda (Pravda.ru) on-line publication raised the issue in an article with a Russian title that translates as “The McCain Incident–An Egyptian May Be the President of the U.S.”
The article was translated at Watching America, under the title “Can Egyptian Born McCain Be President?”
The article was an interesting assessment of the state of the presidential primaries in March, 2008.
On the Democratic primary, Pravda called the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama too close to call—“nose-to-nose.”
On the Republican side it had a definite opinion: “John McCain has already ensured himself the votes of the majority of delegates in the Republican Party.”
But there was a caveat—an “except for.”
According to Pravda, the except for was: “A new issue has arisen. The issue is that John McCain was born in Egypt. To run for the presidency of the US, one must be born in the United States…”
In an interview with—are you ready?—professor MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations) Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute of Strategic Rankings and Analysis, professor of the Department of the Applied Political Sciences of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Pravda drops the bombshell question:
There is some news coming from the press that McCain, as a candidate, may be hurt by the fact that he was not born in the US, but in Egypt. Is it true that this fact could be a hindrance to his campaign or is it simply gossip that is a part of all campaigns?
Without missing a beat professor Konovalov replies:
In principle Obama may have a bigger problem because he is a son of a Kenyan student and a white American woman. Then the Kenyan student left for Kenya and abandoned his girlfriend (sic) with little Obama. After that she married an Indonesian and they left for Indonesia for a prolonged period of time.
The professor then goes on to interpret the U.S. Constitution and to provide some additional interesting tidbits—not all of them necessarily factual:
I don’t remember how the Constitution stipulates this, but I do know that a child born into a military family becomes an American citizen. McCain has a “winning” biography. He spent five years as a POW in Vietnam; he was tortured; he spent five years in a hole. Actually, as he was tortured by the Vietnamese, he heard Russian speech in the next room. And in his words, these people periodically recommended to the Vietnamese how best to torture McCain.
He’s twice married; his second wife is Miss Arizona. He has seven children; three of which are adopted. Therefore, I find it unlikely that with such an excellent resume, the fact that McCain was born in Egypt will play any role in the election.
Well, there is that Egypt bit again, and there were other “interesting” comments, such as “The Republicans have a chance to play on a level playing field and even win, even though Bush did everything to make sure that it didn’t happen. Therefore anything can happen. And if I were asked who I thought would win, I’d say McCain…”
In an earlier post on this subject, I came up with a possible explanation for Pravda’s, and the professor’s, confusion as to McCain’s birth place.
As many remember, the British controlled zone of the Suez Canal was also known as the “Canal Zone,” just like the Panama “Canal Zone.“ Perhaps the writers of the “McCain an Egyptian” article, and others, had read that McCain was born in the “Canal Zone” and automatically assumed that it was the Suez “Canal Zone.” Coincidentally, the year that McCain was born (1936) is the same year that Britain, after having “protected” the “neutral canal zone” since 1888, signed a treaty with Egypt retaining control over the canal.
The irony of this story is not really Pravda’s and the professor’s confusion as to McCain’s birth place, nor the professor’s erroneous prediction that McCain would win. It is the fact that—17 months after the official election of Obama as President of the United States—Arizona would still be fretting about Obama’s birth certificate. It is also the almost prophetic suggestion that ”Obama may have a bigger problem because he is a son of a Kenyan student and a white American woman,” as has sadly been borne out by all the allegations, accusations and smears that were to follow.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.