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American Thinker: Obama's Kenyan Citizenship; Obama A Civic Bigamist?

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American Thinker's Cindy Simpson takes a stab at the "natural-born Citizen" issue...


Is the Canadian-born Senator Ted Cruz eligible for the presidency as a natural born citizen? If not, chalk it up as one of the reasons why the junior senator, in the opinion of some, has no business working to defund ObamaCare. As noted by blogger William Jacobson, such thinking appeared to be part of the anti-Cruz argument by pundits Charles Krauthammer and Tucker Carlson last Monday night on Fox News's Special Report. In the midst of "excoriating" Cruz over his defunding strategy, Carlson remarked that the senator might not be eligible. Krauthammer quipped that Cruz could always run instead for prime minister of Canada.

That wasn't the first time Special Report mentioned the Cruz eligibility issue. In August, while guest panelist Charles Lane was arguing that Cruz's Canadian citizenship was no big deal, host Brett Baier interrupted to assert that "if you're running for president, you can't be a dual citizen." Krauthammer followed up by stating that Cruz should "of course" renounce his Canadian citizenship: "it's allegiance to another country," and "if you're head of the United States, you aren't the subject of another state."

Earlier that week, Cruz, after releasing his birth certificate showing his birth in Canada to an American citizen mother and Cuban father, had come under fire when Canadian legal experts attested that he was born with Canadian citizenship. Cruz stated said he wasn't aware of his Canadian citizenship and would formally renounce it.

Do you hear it yet -- the familiar buzz of "birtherism" in the background? For it was the similar argument against Barack Obama's candidacy that many so-called "birthers" had been proclaiming since 2008 -- that Obama's dual citizenship precluded his eligibility.

Obama's own 2008 campaign website, "Fight the Smears," admitted his dual citizenship. While FactCheck assured readers that Obama's Kenyan citizenship (inherited from his father) automatically expired when he was 23, others assert that Obama may still hold British citizenship to this day. In addition, TheBlaze's Charles Johnson reported that Obama may have Indonesian citizenship as well.

The mainstream media, however, narrowly defined the "birther" label as a conspiratorial belief in a Kenyan birth, and the finer points of the issue were lost on most.

Many who looked into it, however, found "very persuasive" the legal arguments that "born a citizen" means the same thing as the Constitution's "natural born" requirement. In other words, as long as the current citizenship law granted the child U.S. citizenship at birth, that child is a "natural born citizen." Academia, although they may not have taken the time to seriously consider the issue for Obama, now openly address it as an interesting question for Cruz; however, the focus is still primarily on the "born a citizen" theme. Those who did note the dual citizenship aspect, such as Professor Peter Spiro, called such talk (about Obama, anyway) a "bizarre sideshow."

In Prof. Jacobson's recent lengthy analysis on the natural born question, dual citizenship was addressed in a very small paragraph titled "There is Nothing Forbidding Dual Citizens." Earlier on, he noted that the framers did not include any wording regarding dual citizenship in the eligibility requirements, and that "such wording could have been inserted, and the lack of such limitations is significant." [...] Continued @ American Thinker.

RELATED: Fox News' Carl Cameron Reports Sen. Ted Cruz Ineligible To Be President - VIDEO HERE.

FLASHBACK: American Thinker Pushes Myth Citizen Is Same As Natural Born Citizen - DETAILS HERE.

- Image Credit: Protect Our Liberty -

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