The Constitution prohibits a foreign-born citizen from seeking the presidency, but if it didn’t . . .

When Sen. Orrin Hatch and others finally get around to meddling with the Constitution to allow a foreign-born U.S. citizen to seek the presidency, someone should throw Madeleine Albright’s hat into the ring.

True, the constitutional elves had someone else in mind, someone like the Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger, sworn in this month as governor of California. But, Washington’s not Sacramento.

Maybe Republicans have gotten used to having underachievers in high places, including the Oval Office. We’ve already seen the consequences of that kind of settling in Kabul and Baghdad. And no matter how many visits with heads of state this president makes, the international alliances seem to be getting weaker, not stronger.

As they say, never send a boy to do a man’s job.

So why not send a woman instead? If I had my druthers, that woman would be Madeleine Albright.

Albright for president!

It has a nice ring to it. It’s just that it probably won’t be possible in her lifetime. Albright, whose book tour brought her to Kansas City last week, is 66. Although the author of “Madam Secretary” appeared healthy in meetings with The Kansas City Star’s Editorial Board and at the Central Exchange, she ain’t getting any younger.

If only Madlen Jana Korbel had been born in a hospital in Peoria instead of Prague. If only the early years spent in the United States, including in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in 1967 with then husband, Joe, counted for something. They don’t count for squat, not in the presidential sweepstakes.

Even though this Czech native rose to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was the highest-ranking woman in government as President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state – a first for a woman – she still doesn’t have the main credential needed for the Top Spot. Although she took the citizenship oath at age 20, she’s not a U.S.-born citizen. So under Article II of the Constitution she isn’t eligible for the presidency.

Too bad, too, because this woman, who has stood up to tough guys such as Kim Jong Il, Vladimir Putin, Slobodan Milosevic, Yasser Arafat, and, oh yes, Sen. Jesse Helms, can hold her own. (Though her politics and Helms’ differ, the senator often displayed his respect and fondness for her leadership.)

Albright does not demur; she does not wilt; she does not blink.

A believer in building alliances, she’s no pacifist, either. She knows that there are times when military force becomes necessary. Read her memoir and get the skinny on Kosovo and Iraq.

Her memoir recounts her years in government service at the United Nations, at the State Department and as congressional liaison to President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. But it also reveals a more personal side of this highly professional woman, a woman who survived a painful divorce and went on to continue to serve her country without skipping a beat.

Albright is as plain-speaking as was Harry Truman. She even presides over the Truman Scholarship Foundation at Georgetown University.

Speaking of plain talk, when the Cuban government shot down a civilian plane during the Clinton years, Albright said the Castro regime showed “cowardice, not cajones.”

Surprisingly, Albright withheld strong criticism of the Bush administration in her memoir and during her meeting last week with The Star’s Editorial Board. But she let it rip during the 2002 commencement address at the Fletcher School of Law at Tufts University.

“The Bush foreign policy team seems to be suffering from untreated bipolar disorder,” she told the graduating class. “They talk about the importance of our alliances in Europe and Asia and then fail to employ our alliances on matters of mutual security concern. They warn about the dangers posed by ballistic missiles, but needlessly delay negotiations with North Korea on how to reduce that very threat. They talk about the importance of the rule of law, but seem allergic to treaties designed to strengthen the rule of law in areas such as money laundering, biological weapons, crimes against humanity and the environment.”

When Albright met with The Star’s Editorial Board, she was fresh from a visit to Europe. She said that while she is used to some European antipathy toward the United States, what struck her most this time was the intensity of it.

This worries her because she believes it is imperative to foster these alliances in what in her book she calls “the New World (Dis)Order.” She’s correct. America cannot face Iraq, North Korea and certainly not the war on terrorism alone.

Of the view of America from Europe, Albright said, “They see us as a nation out of control.” And the Bush administration’s foreign policy, she told the board, has created “the perfect storm.”

In “Madam Secretary,” Albright writes, “One of the hardest parts of writing a memoir is facing the implication that when you reach the end, your life – or at least the interesting part – is over. I don’t feel that.”

Good for her. Good for the nation. Now, Sen. Hatch, about that constitutional amendment

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman is a columnist for the Kansas City Star.

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