So You've Elected an Alien President...

While discussing Citizen Kang, we got into one of our characteristically overly-detailed conversations about a 7-minute piece of fiction that aired nearly 15 years ago. Tony seemed to remember a scene where Kang and Kodos had fake U.S. birth certificates made up.

This really didn’t happen — and actually, he’s a little worried that he was able to invent this vivid scene that never took place.

"AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."

Of course, back in 1996, there was no such thing as presidential-birth-certificate humor. Nowadays, on the other hand...

"Birth CERTiFicT Where OBAMA Whe..."
I really want to know where he was going with this.

Nowadays we have people who are upset because the guy born in Panama lost the election in 2008. You've gotta think these people would probably view the Kang Administration with a little... skepticism. Or not, depending on which side of the "abortions for some, miniature American flags for other" fence they fall.

Anyway, the point stands: Kang was probably not a constitutionally-viable candidate for president. After all, not only was Kang clearly not born in the United States, he obviously wasn’t a permanent U.S. resident for at least 14 years. And is he even 35 years old? I don’t think anyone knows if there’s a way of finding out. I’m sure the Rigellian year is much different than an Earth year. Plus, I’m sure Kang ages differently than humans. According to the U.S. Constitution, he has no business serving as president.

Then again, the American electorate seems to be okay with letting the occasional dud through.

In "Citizen Kang," of course, citizenship is clearly not an issue. As you might expect, this all led to some very nerdy conversation...

Tony: Let's try and think of how many amendments or other pieces of legislation President Kang might have broken. For example, that death ray probably violates a number of arms treaties, right?

Doug: I had mentioned the 13th Amendment on Monday's post. But yeah, I'm sure there are others, not to mention other statutes like false imprisonment. Also, kidnapping a president and senator is probably frowned upon in a legal sense.

Tony: I'm sure you could make a case for most of the amendments being completely overruled. Although maybe the Rigellians wouldn't need to quarter any of their troops in our houses. That would be good. Otherwise... I dunno, you've got the Geneva Convention in there. Which in turn makes me wonder if Kang conquered all of Earth, or just the United States.

Doug: I was wondering about that. It certainly seems so. Do you think our allies would stand idly by as the U.S. got invaded?

"Should we be doing something about this? Eh..."

Tony: I dunno. They might just up and decide that we've gone rogue, which could lead to some uncomfortable times at the U.N.

Doug: Mind you, this was before Iraq. Well, I mean before the current Iraq. It was after Desert Storm. We weren't as distrusted among, say, major European powers. I mean, the U.K. would probably follow us into a war against kittens, but we hadn't pissed off Germany or France at that point. Canada probably wouldn't want this shit happening in their backyard, which means that we'd probably get more help from the Commonwealth (Yay, Australia, New Zealand, et al.)

Though, the fact that we knowingly and willingly elected an alien president might lose us some worldwide support. I should say "they." I was too young to vote in the '96 election.

Tony: Yeah, I think we definitely get the U.K./greater commonwealth. I don't know about the rest of Europe. We probably don't get Russia, either, at that point. But given the normal pace of diplomacy, that's probably all Kang needed, right? I mean, it's not as if there was a George W. Bush out there, threatening to invade.

Napoleon being unavailable, western Europe would definitely find itself in a fix.

Doug: So... we're screwed either way?

Tony: Seems like it. But don't blame me, I would've voted for Kodos!

Well, regardless of Kang's eligibility of the the presidency, we deemed him eligible enough to be an entrant of the Presidential Gladiatorial Arena™. If you haven't already, please vote in Kang's fight against James Buchanan.