Candidates meet 'natural-born' test despite rumors

As John McCain and Barack Obama vie to become U.S. president, certain fevered voices persist in saying they should not even be allowed to try. In an argument popular on the Internet and taken seriously practically nowhere else, critics of the candidates argue that each does not qualify to run for the White House because he is not a "natural-born citizen" as the country's Constitution requires. Obama plainly is, because he was born in the U.S. McCain qualifies, too, although the circumstances of his birth — on a U.S. naval base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 — were unusual enough to merit a review. In California, U.S. District Judge William Alsup threw out a lawsuit seeking to remove McCain from the state's ballot because of his birthplace. Alsup ruled in September that McCain was essentially a qualifying citizen two times... [read full story]