Kenyan, Panamanian or American

Both Obama and Mccain has gone leaps and bounds during this campaign, one trying hard to run from the shadow of the past president to be and the other running from the shadow of the former first lady before that, each looking to have a decent shot at becoming the Forty Fourth President of the United States of America. But problems have bubbled up, Barack may have been born in Hawaii or perhaps Kenya, while John was born in the Panama Canal Zone, neither within the national territory limits itself. This now brings into question the eligibility of both, which gives them some commonality, not unlike how both John F. Kerry and George W. Bush were proud members of Yale's Skull and Bones in 2004.

So, who is a natural born citizen, a citizen at birth, such that one can be a President someday? The 14th Amendment defines citizenship as to be "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The United States Constitution framework is gap filled by the United States Code law through Title 8 and Section 1401 which states "citizens of the United States at birth being anyone born inside the United States; any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe; any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.; any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national; any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year; any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non citizenship is not provided by age twenty one; any one born outside the U.S., if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years, with military and diplomatic service included in this time, and one last historical condition is that a person born before May, 24, 1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

Now, with no real possibility of either candidate's citizenship being constitutionally challenged in the courts, both Obama and Mccain can focus with less than one week to go on the race at hand. Barack and John, up to now, do not seem to be offering much change in substance if at all and very little in style, which sadly leads one to think that it will be a campaign that goes racial. As an American dual citizen myself, I think it really is comfortable to know we half and halfs have a chance and choice to change America at the highest level, if we ever think that things are getting out of control down there for our fellow Americans, because America only needs one special interest group in control of it and that is Americans.