When An American isn’t an American

This week, we learned that Senate candidate Ted Cruz has gotten the nod to speak at the GOP national convention this year, with a tip of the hat toward not only the TEA Party but Hispanic voters. And we have also learned that TEA Partiers have begun a whisper campaign that Cruz could just possibly be their standard bearer in 2016 since Mitt Romney is arguably the weakest GOP presidential candidate since Bob Dole.

Ted Cruz 2016.

Then someone checked, and oops, Cruz was born in Canada.

Canada, as well as Kenya, both qualify as foreign soil.

But wait, there’s more. Not only was Ted Cruz born in Canada, his father was a former Cuban Freedom Fighter for Fidel Castro. A Cuban and a Communist.

Hmmm. Not only a foreigner, but the son of a Communist Castroite.

Seems unlikely then.

Oh, but wait. Guess what? According to the research, Ted Cruz’ mother was born in Delaware and therefore qualifies as a US citizen.

And that, friends and neighbors, makes Ted Cruz eligible as a “natural born” US citizen because his mother was a citizen, and besides that, Cruz was never naturalized – a key point in deciding if one is a “natural born” citizen,

So the TEA Party heaved a collective sigh of relief and went back to their whisper campaign.

And there you have it: a complete double standard.

Give it all to the Birthers. Give it to them that Barack Hussein Obama was born in Kenya. Or Indonesia. Give it to them that he was adopted by his mother’s second husband and his real name is Barry Soetoro. Give it to them that his father and step father were Muslims, and neither of them citizens of the United States. Give it all to them.

Give all that up and it still remains that Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born in Kansas. His mother, born in Kansas, was a full citizen of the United States.

Now Delaware may have been a state before Kansas was, but last I looked both were states in the past century when both mothers were born.

So here’s the thing. How is it that TEA Partiers can undergo such mental gymnastics to verify that their favorite son is a natural born citizen of the United States, but the same set of conclusions cannot be applicable to the sitting president?  How is that?

Is it that an American is not an American when the TEA Party decides? Or is it just the case that when a black man is in this position it becomes political fodder for those who want to whip up the historical racial suspicions and prejudices that still haunt our nation?

Either way it goes is unsettling to me.