Any boy can grow up and become . . .

I remember when I was a child being told that any boy born in this country could grow up and become President. [Of course, this was bull. There isn’t enough time for everybody to become president even if the term is just for one day. And, funny, I don’t remember the same being said about any girl.] But figuring out who was born in this country can put some people in fits.

Late in the 1964 election cycle, Melvin Belli, a famed torts lawyer of the time, filed a lawsuit alleging that Barry Goldwater was not eligible to be President because he was born in the Arizona territory, not in one of the United States.

His case was never heard in court. Courts do not usually rule unless there is a case in hand and with the short timeline and Goldwater’s rejection by the people of 44 states, there was never a case to put in front of any judge[s].

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The press at the time laughed at the idea, because people born in US territories are citizens at birth. Congress has made it so. But I remember reading some law professor saying shortly afterward that the suit would have had at least some theoretical merit, apparently reading the language to require that a president be born in one of the United States. I looked at my copy of the Constitution and was not sure that I agreed, but figured that it was one of those things that law professors have fun with. Several years later I remember seeing a similar article. A lot of Latin was thrown about.

Now we might have a similar case coming up since John McCain, although a citizen from birth, was born in Panama. A foreign country is not the same as a territory, so the case would be different, but it seems a lot the same to a non lawyer like me.

Pat Kessler of WCCO poo-poohed the idea that Senator McCain is ineligible the other day and most other people have too. I am pretty sure that they are right in the theory.

But even if they are not right, I think it mainly a matter of fact that if the McCain-Palen ticket carries enough states to have 270 or more electoral votes that they will be declared elected.

Let’s think of things practically. When the electoral votes are counted on January 6 and Dick Cheney [possibly after an objection is raised by somebody in Congress] declares that John McCain has been elected President, somebody [maybe not even a nutcase] will likely be running to a federal court house.

But can anybody imagine that the federal court system would step into this separation-of-powers argument to say that the American people’s choice cannot take office after a joint session of Congress has declared him elected, for a legal reason that even most attorneys cannot understand.

Even if the Supreme Court did not have a 7 to 2 Republican majority this would not happen. But it will give a few lawyers and professors something to think and talk about for a while.

Lawyers and professors are free to enlighten us here, but the matter seems clear to me.

The Constitution refers to our republic as the “United States of America.” Barack Obama was born in neither North America nor South America, but on a Pacific island. Will anybody run with this?