The following video is posted in honour of the Republicans’ ridiculous stunt today celebrating their takeover of the House of Representatives by reading the U.S. Constitution on the House floor. A “superceded” version of the Constitution, it should be noted; one that conveniently allowed them to omit of its more problematic aspects, like the part assigning slaves the value of 3/5 of a person. A wag at the WP with impeccable timing cleverly described this as “Huck Finning” the document.
As Matt Yglesias said: “Just kind of sweeping this all under the rug transforms the gesture into a silly and inaccurate deification of a practical document written by human beings…” Ironically, it’s also a repudiation of the firmly held belief by (most usually right-wing) constitutional fundamentalists that America’s founding document is somehow fixed in amber.
