The Canadian Candidate
by digby
I assume liberals are not going to jump on this Ted Cruz being born in Canada business with the same fervor as the right's masturbatory obsession with Obama's birth certificate because the facts are clear: he is eligible to run for president. But it cannot pass unnoted that the right wing spent years attacking Obama for allegedly not being a "natural born American" even to the extent that they claimed he faked his birth certificate. But the fact is that he was born in the US and it wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't been since his mother was American, just like Ted Cruz's.
This is the situation with Cruz. His father was a Cuban citizen when Cruz was born, his mother was American and he, unlike Obama, actually wasn't born in the US and held a dual citizenship with Canada until last year. All of that makes him perfectly eligible to be president, of course. But the idea that these right wingers are a-ok with Cruz's circumstances after having made such a spectacle of themselves over Obama shows them to be ... hypocrites. Shocker, I know.
But get a load of this from the New York Times story about it this morning:
Critics of Mr. Cruz sought to stir controversy about his candidacy on social media, noting that he was born in Canada and saying that he could never legally become president.
The trope is a common one for would-be presidents, and President Obama and Senator John McCain both faced questions about their birthplaces and eligibility as recently as 2008.
The difference in "questioning" those two (and Cruz, no doubt) is substantial. The right wing had an entire cottage industry dedicated to attacking President Obama's legitimacy, largely based on questions about his race and his religion. It was a disgusting display that continued for many years. There were maybe three questions in the Daily Kos comments section about McCain. The scale of the questioning makes them completely different in substance.
Cruz probably will get some ribbing from the left for the hypocrisy of his followers and he'll probably try to turn it into some sort of martyrdom to the flag and be somewhat successful at doing it. That's how they operate. And maybe in this case hypocrisy really is the tribute vice pays to virtue --- Cruz's father is an immigrant and Cruz himself is a highly accomplished ethnic minority. The right is going to be forced to defend that. Sure, they would easily turn around and condemn a Democrat for the same thing. They've proved what they are capable of. But every time they have to defend Cruz they defend the law as it is. And that's the best you can hope for.
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