A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth Issue

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: July 11, 2008


A 1936 picture shows the future presidential candidate John McCain in the arms of his grandfather John Sidney McCain in the Canal Zone. His father, John Sidney McCain Jr., is at left.

In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr. McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.â€