I'll admit now that I never actually heard the news about McCain's citizenship coming under fire until you mentioned it today, so perhaps the British media just didn't choose to publish it, hence why I didn't think it picked up steam. We got a lot of Obama stuff though, lots of stories about how people saying he's not really American and all that stuff. There was also a documentary about Obama and it featured a lot of interviews from people who misunderstood his heritage, a lot of people saying he wasn't really American, hinting because he was black and because he had a funny name and all that jazz. I just assumed any idiot who questioned Obama's citizenship was doing it on race alone.

You misunderstand what I'm saying though. It wouldn't be racist to try and disqualify McCain, because if you're unsure of the law, then you might think a Panama-born person is ineligible (clearly he wasn't aware that he was still born on US territory and both his parents were American, therefore on two counts he counts as an American citizen). Whereas with Obama, Obama said he was born in Hawaii, so fair enough. So what are the main grounds for trying to question Obama's citizenship? I can't see any obvious reason to question Obama when he says he was born in Hawaii other than his race.

That's the difference between McCain/Colera and Obama. McCain and Colera were both born outside of the 50 states and to someone unsure of the constitution might think they're ineligible. Obama was born in one of the 50 American states, so why would someone question his natural-born status? Regardless of colour, Obama had as much eligibility to run as Bill Clinton, both Bush presidents and Nixon, and no one ever questioned their natural-born status (at least not to my knowledge). If you tried to say Clinton wasn't really American, you'd get laughed at. Say the same about Obama and some people think, 'Well, he's black, better check'.