WHEN Professor Robert Dupont’s face appeared on TV in Bill Edwards’ dining room, a wheeze of smoky air was inhaled as Kowalski twisted the knife, “Advising them in private, in confidence… that’s one thing. But for Dupont to appear… to step onto the plate… and for the other team… What is the old fool thinking?”
On camera, Mandrake was seated opposite Dupont in a musty-looking office, whose walnut shelves were replete with hundreds of impressive-looking leather-bound volumes, most with slips of paper sticking unkempt out of the tops. After introducing Dupont to the viewers, Mandrake leant over the desk separating them and said, with a forced na?veté,
“Professor, until tonight Isabel Diaz believed her father was a Bolivian businessman, but we now know he was a senior Chilean diplomat. What’s the impact of this on her crack at the White House?”
“Absolutely nothing, you big fool. You got the wrong guy,”shouted one of the team in the hall with Isabel and, when he caught the dark look she shot at him, he realised he’d guzzled one drink too many.
“Regretfully,” said Dupont, “it means everything. The wonderful lady’s campaign is over, assuming your information about her father is correct…”
“Which it damned-well is not,” said Gregory. “Sorry,” he apologised, to no one in particular.
“…and I stress, if. If that’s the fact, then our Constitution dictates that I, and you, and all Americans will forever be denied the privilege of voting in Ms Diaz as our President.”
At that moment, the station flashed to an ad for a nasal spray. “All stuffed up…?”
“If we didn’t know this was built on a foundation of garbage,” said a relieved but perplexed Gregory, “it’d be a disaster. But what’s this Constitution thing? Oliver? You pointy heads didn’t come up with anything, right?” He slurped on a silver and red can.
“Not yet, no,” said Oliver. “We’ve got Professor Millie Wilkinson on retainer,” he pointed to the phone he’d put temporarily on mute to answer the question, “but she’s still looking.” Oliver noticed the quizzical eyebrows, “She’s a female version of Robert Dupont, but with better legs. And at Princeton.”
No one laughed, though unknown to those in Detroit, Myron Kowalski was sniggering into his gnarled old fingers.
“Shh! They’re back on,” said Gregory.
Mandrake recapped before asking Dupont to continue.
“Our Constitution, sir, insists that our president is a natural born citizen…”
As Mandrake gravely nodded, the relevant text of the Constitution scrolled up the screen saying pretty much what Dupont had said, but with a lot more verbiage.
“A rule that kept people like Henry Kissinger and Arnold Schwarzenegger out of the Oval Office can’t be all bad,” said Mandrake.
The octogenarian looked as if he was about to rebut Mandrake with a weighty list of twenty or more distinguished and naturalised Americans any of whom he would have been delighted to have seen as president, but pushed on:
“The Fourteenth Amendment, Mr Mandrake, defines who is actually a citizen.”
The precise legalese appeared on the screen.
“But let me simplify it,” said Dupont. “You’re a natural born citizen if you satisfy two tests that most people wrongly read as one: you must be born here AND you must also be subject to our jurisdiction. Are you with me so far?”
Mandrake looked perplexed:
“But professor,” he added, squeezing his bearded chin to emphasise the complexity, “Isabel Diaz was born in Newark, New Jersey. Here’s a certified copy of her birth certificate.”
Mandrake waved a piece of paper, and Dupont responded:
“Yes, Mr Mandrake. But, as I just said, we must consider more than mere birth… not only must a president be born here, he or she must also be ‘subject to our jurisdiction’ as I said a moment ago. The problem for Ms Diaz is that when she was born in Newark, as that paper you’re brandishing certifies, her father was a loyal Chilean diplomat…”
The camera flicked to Mandrake.
“And…?”
Dupont looked imperiously down his nose:
“Please, sir! Any constitutional lawyer worth their salt will tell you that a diplomat owes their allegiance to the country they serve—you’d expect that, wouldn’t you? It means, in the language of our Constitution, that they’re not subject to our jurisdiction. You have heard of diplomatic immunity, yes?”
Mandrake glared back at Dupont as if the old gentleman had severe body odour.
Dupont shook his head, and continued:
“And it’s the same with their children: the children of diplomats are also not subject to our jurisdiction. Mr Mandrake, birth and allegiance have been twinned together for centuries. That was so at the signing of our Constitution and it is still so now.”
“But why is that?” asked Mandrake.
“Why…?” said Dupont, barely concealing a grimace. “Because our founders feared foreign influence over our president. Just imagine if the father of today’s president was a serving Iranian or North Korean diplomat or dignitary.”