Here's a thought about the question of Obama's birth certificate

Who cares?

Yes, I know that the people who are trying to prove that Obama has falsified his birth certificate are "looking for a loophole" that allows them to get rid of him as President. I understand the short-term payoff (let's not take a chance this time on elections and impeachment by making him ineligible for office) but there is an underlying presumption/assumption being made by those on both sides of the argument.

It matters to them if someone is a "naturally born" American. On some level they don't feel that someone who has merely become a naturalized citizen is truly an American.[1]

There are many other countries where this whole line of thought seems at best silly. One could make an argument that someone who had only recently become a citizen of a country might be less likely to truly understand the hopes, dreams and needs of the its citizens--but that has more to do with the length of time one has lived in the country and the degree to which one's lifestyle had distanced one from the lives of most people than with actual citizenship.

It may not be unrelated that it was in the United States that I first heard people describe themselves as "cradle Catholics" to defend their opinions about some aspect of Catholicism.

In both cases it is just as likely that a new citizen/communicant would be more aware of the technical details than would someone who had never had to "work for" or "earn" membership.

So, just to throw a thought out there, next time someone is talking about amending the Constitution how about suggesting that they change Article 2--Section 1:

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.

to

No person except a Citizen of the United States 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.

[1] Yes, I know that there was a brief flurry of discussions about a Constitutional Amendment when Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered a successful Republican governor. However an amazing number of Republicans I talked to felt that it would be just wrong to have a naturalized citizen as President. Democrats who were otherwise supports of Jennifer Granholm seemed similarly conflicted. [2]

[2] My how quickly things change in politics. Yes, there was indeed a time when it seemed that only Article 2-Section 1 stood in the way of either Governor making a serious run for their party's Presidential nomination.