Why nation needs debate on eligibility

Almost four years into Barack Obama’s first term, it’s time for a national debate on eligibility – the one I’ve been trying to stimulate for five years.

It’s not just about Obama – as I’ve said all along.

It’s about the Constitution and its meaning – its original intent, if you will.

Do you believe, as I do, that the Founding Fathers were especially gifted men, inspired by God, learned, who adopted biblical principles and created the second, after the nation of Israel, deliberately self-governing nation in the history of the world?

Is that concept worth trying to maintain – to keep alive?

If so, the issue of presidential eligibility is paramount.

We can’t afford to ignore it. We can’t afford to sweep it under the rug because it is politically inconvenient. We can’t afford to put it off for another time. Now is the time, as we approach the first presidential election in what could be a post-Obama America.

Will we allow the taint of Obama to dumb-down constitutional standards in hopes of returning to constitutional standards? It’s crazy to believe that.

Obama doesn’t respect the Constitution. He seems to hate it. Even his own rhetoric suggests that.

That’s why we can ill afford to see the Republican Party, which claims to still believe in the Constitution, nominate for president or vice president someone who does not meet the standard of eligibility –without question and without free and open debate.

I can surely understand why liberal Democratic voices don’t want to have such a debate. They want Obama to be re-elected, and they want all constitutional restraints on who can seek the presidency and vice presidency to go the way of the horse and buggy.

What I cannot understand is why conservative and Republican voices want to allow the aberration of Obama to forever set new low standards of constitutional eligibility.

And I know I am not alone.

It’s not my contempt for Obama alone that drives my passion on this. I want to see America overcome Obama. I would like for history to judge him as a completely failed leader – someone who sparked a renaissance of love and respect for the Constitution and the Founding Fathers and what they bequeathed to us.

That’s why I believe it would be a national tragedy if the Republican Party were to lower its standards for constitutional eligibility as a result of Obama.

It seems the Republican establishment is willing to overlook the historical and literal definitions of presidential and vice presidential eligibility in favor of short-term political pragmatism by choosing an attractive, young, dynamic and otherwise thoroughly qualified vice presidential candidate in 2012 – that being Sen. Marco Rubio.

I like Rubio. I supported him for election to the Senate. But he is, by the definitions we have used for more than 200 years in America, not a “natural born citizen.”

I suggested recently that his nomination would cost the Republican Party 10 percent of the vote in the 2012 election – not because he is not otherwise worthy, not because I don’t like him, not because he is Hispanic, not because I don’t agree with him on every position, but because he is of, at least, questionable constitutional eligibility.

I was wrong.

It turns out, according to a recent scientific survey conducted by WND under the auspices of pollster Fritz Wenzel, that as many as 40 percent of Republicans would be faced with a serious predicament if Rubio were the nominee.

From a purely pragmatic political perspective, Republicans can ill afford such a choice.

But from a constitutional perspective, the choice – especially without that free and open national debate – would be a disaster for the nation’s future.

Are we to believe that what the founders meant by “natural born citizen,” as some suggest, was no more than what we refer to today as “anchor baby” status – born on U.S. soil without any concern for the immigration or citizenship status of the parents?

That seems to be a definition that is extreme and colored by our own experience rather than the careful thought that was given to this question by the founders. It also seems to me to be hopelessly ill-advised.

I suppose if you consider Karl Rove and John McCain and Mitt Romney to be the intellectual, spiritual and moral equivalent of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and George Washington, such concerns would seem over-the-top. But I don’t see it that way. Neither, apparently, do at least 40 percent of Republican voters.

That’s why we need a debate about eligibility.

That’s why we need to get refocused on the Constitution.

That’s why we need to prepare for a post-Obama America that will be worthy of our great national heritage.