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Opinion: Is John McCain an American citizen, a real one?

By Matthew Hay Brown
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Ever since it became clear, or semi-clear, that Arizona Sen. John McCain was not going to be bumped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination by Rep. Ron Paul, The Ticket has received numerous comments from loyal readers wondering if the former POW was really a native-born American citizen.

And thus eligible to become president of these United States under the constitutional stipulation “No Person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

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Even the Big Guy, Gov. Ahnold from Austria, can’t terminate that one.

The question arises because the 71-year-old McCain was born into a U.S. Navy family on-duty in the Panama Canal Zone, which seems kinda foreign to some folks, although it was under American control in 1936 when McCain first emerged.

Well, this just in from Washington and the mouth of the Cabinet secretary charged with enforcing federal immigration laws.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was responding Wednesday to a question from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy about McCain’s citizenship status.

“We’ve had some question on this committee to have a special law passed,’ said Leahy, who actually supports Democrat Sen. Barack Obama, ‘declaring that Senator McCain was born in the Panama Canal, that he meets the constitutional requirement to be president.

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“I fully believe he does,’ Leahy continued. ‘I’ve never had any question in my mind that he meets our constitutional requirement.

“You’re a former federal judge,” he said to Chertoff. “You’re the head of the agency that executes federal immigration law. Do you have any doubt in your mind? I have none in mine. Do you have any doubt in your mind that he’s constitutionally eligible to become president?”

Chertoff kept his answer brief: “My assumption and my understanding,’ he said, ‘is that if you were born of American parents, you are a natural-born American citizen.’’

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Case closed, it seems.

-- Matthew Hay Brown

Matthew Hay Brown writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune Washington Bureau. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Top of the Ticket
Matthew Hay Brown

As Senior Editor for Investigations and Enterprise, Matt leads The Sun’s investigations team, works with reporters throughout the newsroom on enterprise, and plans and edits the Sunday newspaper. As Senior Editor for National News, he assigns, manages and edits coverage of Washington, national security and the federal workforce. Matt has worked as a Washington correspondent covering Congress, the White House and national security, and as a foreign correspondent covering the Caribbean and Latin America. He has reported in English and Spanish from Iraq, Syria, Cuba, Haiti, Russia, China, Japan, South Africa and many other countries. As a staff writer at The Hartford Courant, he was a member of the team that won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting. Matt earned a master’s degree with honors at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, and teaches journalism at the University of Maryland and the Catholic University of America.

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