http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/5694
“That no more qualifies someone to be president than being a plumber.” That’s what Vice President Joe Biden said about the private equity experience as it relates to qualifications for being the President of the United States. As the politically aware look on in stunned silence, one has to wonder if good ol’ Joe didn’t go rogue from the Obama campaign approved teleprompter script. Why else would he bring up the subject of qualifications, a subject on which President Obama is intensely vulnerable?
The subject of qualifications for the office of President of the United States is a contentious one, if not one that must be addressed from two vantage points: the legal qualifications set forth by the United States Constitution and the practical knowledge vantage point; the amassed experience of any given candidate. And where one is enshrined in the Founding Documents, the other is open to debate.
Constitutionally, the qualifications are clear, at least to those who choose not to politicize the document. Article II, Section 1, states:
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
And while there are some who point to this section of the Constitution when speaking of President Obama’s qualifications, I would point out two poignant issues related to the issue.
First, the definition of “natural born citizen” is one that has been politicized, by that I mean that politicians have taken it upon themselves to craft different definitions throughout history for the phrase. Until a definition for the purposes specific to Article II, Section 1 are enshrined in the Constitution via the amendment process, the definition will always be subject to nefarious forces.
Second, no enforcement mechanism related to Article II, Section 1 exists in the US Constitution. By this I mean that there is no constitutionally mandated protocol, no set process, by which first-source documentation of a candidate’s qualifications can be verified. Further, short of impeachment, there is no method to remove a sitting President should he be found out to be in violation of Article II, Section 1, and with the jadedly polarized political atmosphere in Washington today, impeachment would be next to impossible.