Topic category:  Constitution/Constitutional Crises

When Fox News revised its weekday evening schedule, "The O'Reilly Factor" stayed at 8 PM, "Hannity" shifted from 9 PM to 10 PM, and "On the Record with Greta van Susteren" shifted from 10 PM to 7 PM, permitting Megyn Kelly's "The Kelly File" to take the 9 PM slot.

This election season revealed that Kelly didn't deserve that 9 PM slot and Sean Hannity should have kept it.

Who has been fairer to all the Republican presidential hopefuls, Kelly or Hannity?

Hannity, clearly.

Who injected herself into the presidential campaign by targeting Donald Trump in the first debate of the Republican presidential hopefuls?

That would be Kelly.

Who treated the Democrats' Republican War on Women canard as a fact during that debate?

That would be Kelly again.

Last Wednesday Fox News gave each of the four remaining Republican presidential hopefuls an interview for the hour. van Susteren interviewed John Kasich, O'Reilly interviewed Mark Rubio, Kelly interviewed Ted Cruz and Hannity interviewed Trump.

One interview stood out--for interviewer bias.

While the other inrerviewers were "fair and balanced," Kelly should have worn a Cruz for President button.

Cruz's enthuiastic cheerleader misleadingly told her viewers that Cruz was a boy "from Houston."

She never mentioned that Cruz actually is a "boy from Canada."

Even though a Cruz supporter had just appeared on "Cavuto" to share the "critical" information that Trump's wife would be the first foreign-born First Lady in a century.

The Constitution has no requirement as to the place of birth of First Ladies, but it explicitly requires any President to be a "natural-born Citizen."

A natural-born United States citizen must be born in the USA (including territories).

A naturalized United States citizen can be born anywhere (just like a First Lady).

Cruz is a naturalized United States citizen, not a "natural-born" one.

Cruz was naturalized under a federal statute.

Cruz was naturalized AT birth, but not BY birth.

THAT IS A CRITICAL DIFFERENCE.

The law is not a respecter of persons.

There's no exception for Cruz.

The natural born citizenship clause was included precisely to block all persons not "natural born" in the United States from being eligible to be President of the United States.

That clause was aimed at all naturalized citizens, not Cruz individually, and it makes him ineligible, solely because he was not born in the United States.

Cruz's mother's status as a United States citizen when he was born made him a naturalized citizen, but she delivered him in Canada instead of the United States, making him ineligible until and unless the Constitution is amended.

Neither Cruz nor Kelly mentioned it, whether to be self-serving or politically correct, but

(1) the Constitution should be interpreted as it was understood when it was adopted;

(2) a person born in then British Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother in 1789 would not have been considered a natural born United States citizen by the Framers (such a person would be a natural born British subject under the jus soli principle and it would have been up to Spain, which owned Cuba then, to treat that person as a citizen of Spain too, or not, and neither British subjects nor Spanish subjects are eligible to be President); and

(3) mothers were unable to transmit United States citizenship to their children until a federal statute was enacted in 1934.

If the American people want naturalized citizens to be presidentially eligible too, then the Constitution should be amended, but it should be respected unless and until it is amended.

Instead of showing viewers a series of photos of Cruz and his family like a star-struck fan, Kelly should have asked Cruz which is more important to him--being faithful to his originalist judicial philosophy or being President.

The answer is obvious, but Kelly's viewers don't know that Cruz may be eligible to run for President, but that would not make him eligible to BE President.

Cruz told Kelly that his daughters consider Kelly "a rock star" and Kelly responded that she considers those daughters "rock stars" too.

That's so touching.

Fox News, give Hannity back the 9 PM slot and put a bias warning on Kelly.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.