Jan 09 2009
Obama: Affirmative Actioned President
Well it’s true, the Constitution is an imperfect document. It was written an signed by men who were sexist and racists, actually most of them slaveholders. However, Article II outlining the necessary qualifications of the President of the United States is not racist or sexist. It simply lists the qualifications, namely at least 35 years of age, and a “natural born citizen”. The latter was thought to have been necessary in order to protect the office of the Presidency from usurpers and conflicts of allegiances.
As you may know, Governors, Senators, and other government officials are not required to pass this rigorous requirement, and we have at least two sitting governors who are not “natural Born citizens:” namely Governor Arnold Schwarznegger of California, who is a “naturalized citizen and was born in Austria to two Austrian parents; and Governor Bobby Jindal, whose parents were Indian graduate students who recently immigrated to the U.S. Of course, Governor Jindal was born here. Nonetheless, his parents were not citizens at the time of his birth. There are a few more examples.
Now, the Constitution has been amended to include African Americans and Native Indians as citizens. But an amendment to the constitution requires a lengthy ratification process.
Now, according to legal scholars,like Larry Tribe and Ted Olsen, it was the “original intent” of the authors of the Constitution to allow a person like John McCain to sit as president of the United States. While it is true that he was born in another country and not on American soil, it is their scholarly opinion that the Founding Fathers would not have wanted to penalize military families and their offspring in the service of their country.
Now, with the impending inauguration of Obama who was born a British subject, we seem to be running into un-chartered waters. Not only does he have a British citizenship, but, because he was adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, he also has Indonesian citizenship.
Now, according to Reverend James David Manning, a pastor in Harlem, the Constitutional requirements are being bent because of a racist affirmative action agenda. Reverend Manning seems to feel that it is actually contrary to the best interests of the Afro-American community for this to happen, because they will get the impression that “bending the law” is acceptable and that the standard has to be lowered for them to succeed.
Obviously, there are a number of qualified Afro-American who are natural born citizens, like Michael Steele, Alan Keyes and Condolezza Rice who fulfill that “natural born citizen” requirement, who could have been selected.
Yesterday, the past living presidents met for lunch and, and I’m sure they know very well about all these questions, but they said nothing. The same thing with the Supreme Court, which has been put on notice by numerous private individuals’ lawsuits. There is a case scheduled for conference with the Supreme Court before the inauguration: namely Berg’s and Stephen Pidgeon’s case that will be heard in the state of Washington Supreme Court.
