Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Avoid the Constitution?
nysun.com ^ | 19 September, 2010 | Staff

Posted on 09/20/2010 4:53:27 AM PDT by marktwain

“Republicans: Enlist, but Avoid Speeches on the Constitution.” That’s the way the headline writer for the New York Times encapsulated the advice of one of its reporters, Kate Zernike, in a dispatch over the weekend. “The trick,” she writes, “is to take advantage of the Tea Party passion and stay away from its extremes. Celebrate the genius of the Constitution, but don’t get into the particulars.”

Ms. Zernike goes on to quote the political sage Stuart Rothenberg as saying he reckons it’s “very clear” that “what’s best for the election” is to focus on President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, health care, and the deficit. “You see these rallies and the signs are all about the Constitution,” Ms. Zernike quotes him as saying. “They want it to be about these big ideological ideas, when I don’t think most voters think that way.”

Hmmmm. Our own view is that Ms. Zernike and Mr. Rothenberg are selling the voters short. We don’t belittle their own credentials. Ms. Zernike is the author of a new book on the Tea Party, “Boiling Mad,” which is well up on the Amazon.com list. Mr. Rothenberg is the publisher of a non-partisan political report. But everywhere we’ve gone lately where the conversation or the speeches turn to the Constitution, the place lights right up.

The idea that the constitutional principles are beyond the ken of the American people strikes us as not only condescending but inaccurate. The history of constitutional law is a long oeuvre of cases that were brought by citizens with no special training in the law, and more often than not no fame or special stature. rged from Philadelphia that summer of 1787. Today all over the country, people are looking to the constitution and talking about it.

(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: constitution; elections; people; politics
It is not surprising that the leftists do not want the people to consider the Constitution in the coming elections.
1 posted on 09/20/2010 4:53:30 AM PDT by marktwain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: marktwain

They’d much rather people enjoy American Idol. Weasels. All of ‘em. “Here, take this. Don’t worry, you just doze, and we’ll take care of things for you.” Like I said, weasels.


2 posted on 09/20/2010 4:58:01 AM PDT by sayuncledave (A cruce salus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

Have you seen this dog???? Yeech!, as Alfred E. Neuman would say!


3 posted on 09/20/2010 4:58:58 AM PDT by Doc Savage (SOBAMP!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

The communist progressives think that most ordinary Americans aren’t intelligent enough to understand “the particulars”.

Keep it up, NYT.


4 posted on 09/20/2010 4:59:03 AM PDT by snowrip (Liberal? You are a socialist idiot with no rational argument.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

>>“The trick,” she writes, “is to take advantage of the Tea Party passion and stay away from its extremes. Celebrate the genius of the Constitution, but don’t get into the particulars.” <<

Translation: Joe Six-pack is too stupid to understand that “Constitution” thingy. Only us liberal elites are intelligent to understand it enough to despise it. Stick to guns and butter.


5 posted on 09/20/2010 5:01:41 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (The TOTUS-Reader: omnipotence at home, impotence abroad (Weekly Standard))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain
Celebrate the genius of the Constitution, but don’t get into the particulars.

Because they are such and inconvenient truth to the socialists and fascists who want to take over America. H*** no! We are taking America back from the socialists, anti-liberty, anti-freedom, big-government, nanny-state {expletives} one election at a time. We are hung up on The Constitution - it works. Socialism fails. End of story.

6 posted on 09/20/2010 5:03:53 AM PDT by ThunderSleeps (obama out now! I'll keep my money, my guns, and my freedom - you can keep the change.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

They want to make sure that even if the changes are broad in this election they won’t be very deep, so they can easily be brushed aside in 2012. Anger is temporary but deeper philosophical shifts in people’s opinion of what government should be last far longer. People still measure themselves relative to Reagan while Clinton’s beliefs have been largely forgotten.


7 posted on 09/20/2010 5:04:16 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (Gun control was originally to protect Klansmen from their victims. The basic reason hasn't changed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

The Democrat attack machine is in full force. This tells me they are very worried that the majority of America is not only rejecting the “Progressive agenda” but taking steps to halt it altogether.


8 posted on 09/20/2010 5:23:20 AM PDT by corlorde (New Hampshire)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

Article conclusion. Spot on!

So when the GOP is counseled not to get into these questions, we would say take that advice with a grain of salt. The rising stars on the right this season are crafting a whole movement around the phrase “constitutional conservativism.” That is the stock phrase being used at every stop by Sarah Palin. People like to belittle her learning. But she knows what she’s doing. She’s not trying to impose their religion or their social values. She, and others in her movement, are trying to restore the idea of constitutionalism, the idea that the Constitution through which the people granted power to the Congress also enumerated those powers, so as to limit them, and laid down on the Congress certain prohibitions, most famously the Bill of Rights but also Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution. Those who have taken their focus off these principles are the ones who are in trouble today. The ones who are making speeches about them are prospering. The advice to avoid the Constitution is advice from a quarter that doesn’t wish them success.


9 posted on 09/20/2010 5:43:36 AM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (God punishes Conservatives by making them argue with fools.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

“...when I don’t think most voters think that way.”

when does anyone from the NYT every meet normal people? NYC kook only sees NYC kooks and thinks NYC kooks at the NYT are NORMAL?


10 posted on 09/20/2010 5:50:45 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

The particulars of the Constitution are extreme? It’s the particulars of the Constitution that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have been violating ever since Obama was nominated when Pelosi sent out the form that excluded the part that said Obama was qualified under the Constitution to even be President.


11 posted on 09/20/2010 6:42:34 AM PDT by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, democrats believe every day is April 15.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain
“The trick, is to take advantage of the Tea Party passion and stay away from its extremes. Celebrate the genius of the Constitution, but don’t get into the particulars.”

We all know the constitution is too extreme for the democrats to behold. </arcasm> This is absurd. The constitution is the basis for all our laws. It is not something that changes with the whims of a politician.

12 posted on 09/20/2010 6:43:53 AM PDT by chainsaw ( 'You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

Communist parrots party line. News at 10:00


13 posted on 09/20/2010 2:07:17 PM PDT by TexasRepublic (Socialism is the gospel of envy and the religion of thieves)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson