Gonzales's game-playing was similar to the argument made by Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell during a Delaware Senate debate " that the Constitution doesn't call for the "separation of church and state," because those specific words aren't used.
The First Amendment does say that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," which Thomas Jefferson paraphrased as the "separation of church and state." But it has become an article of faith among many on the Right that "separation of church and state" is a myth. O'Donnell later described herself as high-fiving her aides, thinking she had won the debating point.
Many on the American Right also insist that the Founders created a "Christian nation," even though the word "Christian" is nowhere to be found in the Constitution and the Founders pointedly set no religious exclusions for those serving in the U.S. government.
One has to wonder, too, how the Republicans on opening day will read the Constitution's prescribed oath for the president's swearing in, which ends with a promise to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of United States," without the add-on "so help me God," which was freelanced by George Washington but is not what the drafters of the Constitution wrote.
Leaving out "so help me God" might be deemed part of the war on Christmas.
Radical Revision
Curiously, too, while supposedly revering the Constitution and its original intent, the Tea Partiers and their Republican allies simultaneously are proposing a radical revision of the founding document, an amendment that would allow a super-majority of states to overturn laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.
This neo-nullificationism smacks of South Carolina's resistance to President Andrew Jackson's federalism in the 1830s, a clash that set the stage for the Confederacy's secession and the Civil War in the 1860s. The proposed Tea Party amendment, which is supported by many Southern officials including incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, could again wreak havoc on the nation.
A New York Times editorial noted that because the proposed amendment "focuses on giving states power to veto (e.g., taxes) without their shouldering responsibility for asserting it (trimming appropriations because of lost tax revenue), the unintended consequences would likely be at least as important as the intended."
In other words, the Tea Party and the Republicans are positioning themselves as both fundamentalists embracing the Constitution's "original intent" and radicals determined to rip it up. Still, they are not likely to pay any price for their reckless ideas or their blatant hypocrisy.
If we've learned anything over the past several decades, it is that reason and consistency have little place in the U.S. political/media system. What counts is the size of the megaphone " and the American Right has built a truly impressive one, while the Left has largely downplayed the need for making an alternate case to the public.
As the Times noted, the Tea Party's proposed 28th Amendment "helps explain further the anger-fueled, myth-based politics of the populist new right. It also highlights the absence of a strong counterforce in American politics. "
"The error that matters most here is about the Constitution's history. America's fundamental law holds competing elements, some constraining the national government, others energizing it.
"But the government the Constitution shaped was founded to create a sum greater than the parts, to promote economic development that would lift the fortunes of the American people."
The Times also noted the inability of the American Left to make a case for more government intervention to address the nation's deepening problems, such as high unemployment and severe income disparity. The Times wrote:
"In past economic crises, populist fervor has been for expanding the power of the national government to address America's pressing needs. Pleas for making good the nation's commitment to equality and welfare have been as loud as those for liberty.
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