[David]

I’m not so sure about McCain’s eligibility. I’ve seen it argued from early legal sources (can’t remember which ones) that the children of a nation’s ambassadors are natural born even if they are born on foreign soil while their parent is serving as ambassador in that foreign land.

You can argue about anything. But a person born in another country under a foreign sovereign is not a natural born citizen for US Constitutional Law purposes no matter who his parents are or why he was there.

[LucyT]

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Ping to #51.

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[El Gato]

You can argue about anything. But a person born in another country under a foreign sovereign is not a natural born citizen for US Constitutional Law purposes no matter who his parents are or why he was there.

Not according to Vattel, who wrote "LAW OF NATIONS or PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF NATURE APPLIED TO THE CONDUCT AND AFFAIRS OF NATIONS AND SOVEREIGNS".

Book I, Section 217 as combined with Section 212. Section 212 is where the the founders got the term "natural born citizen":

§ 212. Citizens and natives.

... The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.

Section 217 states:

§ 217. Children born in the armies of the state.

For the same reasons also, children born out of the country, in the armies of the state, or in the house of its minister at a foreign court, are reputed born in the country; for a citizen who is absent with his family, on the service of the state, but still dependent on it, and subject to its jurisdiction, cannot be considered as having quitted its territory.

If you accept the Section 212 definition, you pretty much ought to accept the Section 217 "exception".