Friday
Nov302012
The Commentariat -- Dec. 1, 2012
The President's Weekly Address:
... The transcript is here. Still harping on the middle-class tax cuts. And here's that My2K page where you can tell Congress what $2,000 means to you. The ABC News story, by Mary Bruce, is here.
Zachary Goldfarb & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: Obama & Boehner trade barbs.
Steven Dennis of Roll Call: "Ever since Republicans walked away three times from bipartisan debt talks in 2011, the White House has eschewed sweet-talking the GOP and dismissed suggestions from the likes of presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin that Obama embark on assorted charm offensives involving cocktails and late-night White House get-togethers with lawmakers.... Instead, carrying a big stick is in at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and the fiscal cliff is the biggest stick Obama will ever have -- a $600 billion bucket of pain largely aimed at GOP priorities, such as tax cuts and defense spending."
David Firestone of the New York Times: "Republicans reportedly laughed when they saw the Obama administration's initial offer in the fiscal negotiations yesterday. The idea that President Obama might actually want to enact his campaign promises -- tax hikes on the rich, modest Medicare cuts, investments in infrastructure -- is apparently considered a joke to the party that has shown virtually no flexibility in the last four years.... But once the laughter dies down, they will have to come to the table with a responsible offer of their own, rather than simply declaring a stalemate, as Speaker John Boehner did today.... If they continue to refuse to do so, the public won't find it very funny."
Mike Lillis of The Hill: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday announced Democrats would circulate a discharge petition to force a House vote to extend current tax rates only on annual household income below $250,000.... Democrats would need the support of more than 20 Republicans to secure the 218 signatures needed to force the bill to the floor."
** Our Stenographic Press. Michael Grunwald of Time: "It's really amazing to see political reporters dutifully passing along Republican complaints that President Obama's opening offer in the fiscal cliff talks is just a recycled version of his old plan, when those same reporters spent the last year dutifully passing along Republican complaints that Obama had no plan. It's even more amazing to see them pass along Republican outrage that Obama isn't cutting Medicare enough, in the same matter-of-fact tone they used during the campaign to pass along Republican outrage that Obama was cutting Medicare.... As long as the media let an entire political party invent a new reality every day, it will keep on doing it. Every day."
Deirdre Walsh & Ashley Killough of CNN: "House Speaker John Boehner named Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan as the chairman of the House Administration Committee on Friday, three days after the Republican conference took heat for electing only males as committee heads." Miller ran for chair of the Homeland Security Committee but lost out to a white guy. CW: as far as I can tell the main job of the House Administration Committee is to make sure the bosses have all they need in way of coffee and pencils & stuff. Miller actually said she was "humbled & honored" by the appointment. I wish a Republican woman would write to me & argue that Boehner didn't intentionally humiliate women with this appointment.
Post-Election Analysis of the Absurd. Paul Waldman of American Prospect: Tea Party types like brand-new Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) are arguing that Romney never made the case for conservatism. "In fact, that was the best thing about this election: for all the trivia, it presented a fundamental ideological debate, with both candidates talking about first principles throughout. Conservatives aren't happy that they lost that argument. But even though it's not particularly good politics to condemn the voters for not seeing the light, it's a lot more honest than saying they never got the chance to hear what conservatism had to offer." ...
... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "For months, conservatives yelled from the rooftops about how 2012 presented the sharpest choice ever in governing philosophies.... But as soon as they lost, Republicans suddenly decided that it hadn't been a big-picture election after all. It was about bribing Hispanics. It was about voter turnout machinery. It was about Hurricane Sandy. It was about Mitt Romney being a bad candidate.... Conservatism can never fail. It can only be failed." ...
... CW: Yesterday I decided not to link this piece by Noam Scheiber of TNR, who got hold of some of Romney's internal polling because the piece was pretty much in the weeds & only substantiated what others had reported earlier: that Romney's own pollster thought Romney had several routes to winning the election because they put him ahead in several states he lost. But Paul Krugman puts this bit in the larger context of the "epistemic closure" of the conservative mind. Krugman writes, "My immediate question is not so much why those polls were wrong, but rather why the campaign didn't have severe doubts about what its pollsters were telling them.... All this in turn ties in, I think, with a phenomenon I notice a lot on the right (you can see it often in the comments on this blog): the persistent portrayal of people who disagree with them as marginal figures with trivial support." ...
... CW: the other thing I think you have to credit -- and for some reason scarcely anybody is saying this -- is that Mitt Romney, who ran as a Super-Numbers-Man who could fix any problem with his laser-sharp focus on arithmetic realities, was never anything of the sort. Mitt's successes in life should be attributed to a silver spoon & ruthless indifference, not to super-competence. If Mitt wasn't "severely conservative," why did he only read The Severely Conservative News? This is just more evidence that Romney -- as we've all said -- would have made a horrible president. Not only is he ideologically a throwback to the 19th century, he is incapable of seeing any data or listening to any ideas that don't conveniently fit into his worldview. This is the mindset of disaster-in-the-making. The country's good fortune was that the Romney disaster ended with the campaign. ...
... Nate Silver on the polls: "... when campaigns release internal polls to the public, their goal is usually not to provide the most accurate information. Instead, they are most likely trying to create a favorable news narrative -- and they may fiddle with these assumptions until they get the desired result.... The seeming inaccuracy of Mr. Romney's internal polls ought to present a warning to future campaigns.... Campaigns may also be fooling themselves."
... CW: AND some liberals like Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post are feeling kinda sorry for Romney of the White House Lunch Date. So I'll re-caption that photo: "President Romney welcomes Kenyan Ambassador to Oval Office." Tomorrow I will write on the blackboard 100 times "I will not be such a sore winner." ...
... Gail Collins has some reflections on the Obama-Romney lunch, too. ...
... For earlier presidential history, we turn to historian Paul Finkelman, who writes in a New York Times op-ed: Thomas Jefferson "was a creepy, brutal hypocrite.... His proslavery views were shaped not only by money and status but also by his deeply racist views, which he tried to justify through pseudoscience."
CW: I am going to get sick of stories like this one by Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post on the rising star Kelly Ayotte (RTP-N.H.), an "influential new voice" & Sarah Palin's pick for perfect "mama grizzly." Ayotte, who is auditioning for Joe Lieberman's post as Third Stooge by joining Top Stooges McCain & Graham in lambasting Susan Rice, had the gall to speak at Sen. Warren Rudman's memorial service about Rudman's bipartisanship which she hoped would inspire the Senate to come together now.
Oh, noes! Pat Robertson Denies Creationism. Thanks to Akhilleus for the heads-up:
Local News
Laura McGaughy of the (New Orleans) Times Picayune: "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's school voucher overhaul was dealt a blow Friday when a Baton Rouge area judge declared the diversion of public money by the voucher program to private schools unconstitutional." ...
... Or, as Charles Pierce put it: "... Over the past year, Jindal has managed to marry educational 'reform' grifting to Christian theocracy by allowing charter schools in his state to employ to teach from Jesus-on-a-dinosaur creationist textbooks. Well, today, a local judge pretty much blew up the whole system on him." Read the whole post in which Pierce comments on Jindal as presidential timber.
News Ledes
USA Today: "The U.S. Military Academy's Cadet Chapel at West Point hosted its first same-sex marriage Saturday. Penelope Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, exchanged vows in the regal church in a ceremony conducted by a senior Army chaplain."
New York Times: "Enrique Peña Nieto became president of Mexico early Saturday, beginning a six-year term in which he has promised to accelerate economic growth, reduce the violence related to the drug war and forge closer, broader ties with the United States."
New York Times: "Israel is moving forward with development of Jewish settlements in a contentious area east of Jerusalem, defying the United States by advancing a project that has long been condemned by Washington as effectively dooming any prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." ...
... AP: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met senior Israeli and Palestinian officials Friday, with each side locked in a pattern of actions that the United States had expressly warned against: the Palestinians winning U.N. recognition of their claim to a state on Thursday and the Israelis retaliating Friday by approving 3,000 new homes on Israeli-occupied territory."
Reuters: "International garment firms have demanded fast action to ensure the safety of Bangladeshi textile workers, a week after a plant fire killed more than 100 people.... Mohammad Shafiul Islam, President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), said a 19-member buyers' forum was blunt in suggesting it would 'lose confidence' in the country's industry unless change came fast. Rights groups have called on big-brand firms to sign up for a fire safety program."
AP: "A freight train derailed Friday on a [New Jersey] railroad bridge that has had problems before, toppling tanker cars partially into a creek and causing a leak of hazardous gas that was blamed for sickening dozens of people, authorities said." ...
... The South Jersey Times has the finger-pointing story, plus one on the impact of the chemicals released in the wreck.
ABC News: "PFC Bradley Manning choked back tears during a second day of testimony at a hearing before his military trial as he claimed he didn't tell his family about the conditions of his confinement at the Marine brig at Quantico, Va., because he did not want them to worry. He also expressed concern that doing so could lead to an end to visiting privileges for his family."
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Reader Comments (21)
Paul Finkelman, great piece. Years ago my husband and I visited Monticello after public closing time, a guest of a colleague of mine who worked there. As we sat next to Jefferson's little bed, in an alcove, surrounded by mementos and such, the facts of Jefferson's life which were just then being made public came to my mind. And, I am not kidding, a malodorous miasma of stunted morality and just plain narcissistic self regard arose in the area--at the time I thought, yes, my feminine intuition is telling me something.
Glad to have it confirmed so succinctly in this piece.
@alphonsegaston-
I agree completely. I have never respected Thomas Jefferson and have always wondered why the MSM and so many WHITE MALES celebrate him. Silly me.
His abusive relationship with Sally Hemmings was bad enough--unforgiveable his disregard for the several children she bore him. Even worse his refusal to free his slaves after the Civil War--instead, putting them on the auction block.
How can America look at this man through such rose colored glassses! Is there a connection to the River of DeNial around the
narcissistic Republicans--and their rejected nominee, Lord Small Balls? Yes indeedy.
Nancy Pelosi. Wow. Discharge Petition? Now that's some strategy. I love paradox - if it works yee ha, if it doesn't the Republicans are nekked before God and country. I can't wait to see Boehner holding up that public can of whoop ass for the camera.
I guess that little green pus nugget, Luke Russert, got his answer. Nope, Pelosi stepping aside for the youngsters any time soon. I'm sure he'd make a most most gifted Walmart greeter. And Steny Hamilton Hoyer actually though he had a chance against The Pelosi? Please.
Re: My two k; Saving the Irish export industry a liter at a time. For me it's not the money it's how they spend it. I'm really tired of buying bullets to shoot people who are trying to blow American kids up for being in their country trying to help those people who are blowing us up. I drone on.
Oh, great! From New Hampshire...the state that gave us John Sununu, Bob Smith (remember him? via New Jersey then NH and FINALLY retired to Florida?), now presents us with...tah dah: Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! the hype from McCain is quoted below:
Rosalind S. Helderman of WaPo:
"Sen. Ayotte offers GOP an influential new voice" and wrote:
'McCain called her “very serious” and “a very quick study.” He said he has come to believe Ayotte could be a leader in the mold of Margaret Chase Smith, the trailblazing Maine Republican who served four terms in the Senate.'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-ayotte-offers-gop-an-influential-new-voice/2012/11/30/897dfbb6-3a5f-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html
I'll say this for her, Ayotte is not the bashful type and has moved quickly to gain front page coverage...even if it means cuddling with Grumpy and Dopey. McCain sure knows how to pick'em!
Wow! We are finally getting around to the REAL Jefferson. The drafts of his Declaration of Independence had to be heavily edited and expurgated of exaggerations, inaccuracies and even outright lies. Shades of the election of 1800 to come.
He brought his young wife, Martha, to a barely finished single room home at Monticello while he designed and built his mansion with slave labor. She lived out her short life in a cold, drafty home which was never plastered or painted as Jefferson tore down even faster than he built. One has to speculate why Martha Jefferson made her husband solemnly promise never, ever to marry again. ("You ain't gonna do to another women what you did to me.")
As a designer/builder he was a dilettante and a amateur. A skilled architect and builder of the time would have completed Monticello in a tenth the time and budget.
The agreed upon colonial embargo of certain British goods did not slow Jefferson down one bit from ordering and receiving building materials from England destined for Monticello.
He died leaving more than $1 million in debts, owed mostly to small suppliers and tradesmen. He was a deadbeat.
I won't even get into what a pompous, self-absorbed and neglectful father he was. All around - not a very nice man even forgetting the slavery issues, if one can.
I apologize in advance for the lack of citations in this early Saturday morning post. If required and given time I will substantiate these points.
@kate,aphonsegaston, et. al:
As a white male, feel a hint of danger lurking here but will forge ahead in defense of Mr. Jefferson. Bear with me, please.
Many years ago in a hamlet outside of San Antonio, along with four or five other college students, I was treated to a dinner in an old adobe plantation house still surrounded by what were once slave/sharecropper cabins. We were the guests of an old couple, born in the 1800's, who had lived there since their birth. We were served by a black maid/cook. I remember the biscuits were delicious.
I also remember the uncomfortable discussion one of the other students initiated. It was the fall of 1966, at the height of the Civil Rights movement so the subject of past and present black/white relations was no surprise. Still, as the student I did not know took the older lady host to task for her attitudes toward blacks, I squirmed. My mother would have thought the young lady impertinent and impolite, and my mother would have been right. I cringed more, though, when the old lady responded by telling her in tones conveying absolute certainty: "But you don't understand; they just came out of the trees." I still shudder when I think about that evening on the plains outside San Antonio. How could anyone believe something so wrong, so inhumane, in 1966, nine years after Sputnik had orbited the earth?
The scene was lunatic. Such a skewed view of the world stated so blandly, absolute blind to evidence. But the hospitality was genuine, the old lady more polite and in that limited sense more civilized than the young one, and the biscuits were really good.
Since that night, I know why I hesitate to apply my contemporary sense of morality and rightness--need I say, it's proudly liberal-- to all aspects of the past. I understand and most often support the urge toward what George Will likes to demean as political correctness because I believe that what we call politically incorrect behavior paves the road to violence. But I also understand that an unrelenting liberalism, which imposes its contemporary values on any and everyone, present and past can easily interfere with free thought and speech, even more with understanding.
Or maybe I'm just justifying the genuine gratitude I felt for Jefferson and the cohort of founders when I stood in the Jefferson Memorial, read the beautiful and wise words that have inspired us for more than 200 years, and brushed away a tear. These words inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial are particularly apropos:
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
As I said, there in that Texas time capsule, disturbing as it was, the biscuits were very good.
YOWSA! "It's a new day––a new dawn..." lyrics from some song that Michael Bublé goes on about––because holy cow, when Pat Robertson acknowledges facts rather than his airy fantasies then we can finally breathe easily–-sure enough. And when Jindal's Jesus-on-a-dinosaur discourses are crushed by a local judge then hooray and happy day and may Bobby stay away from trying to inculcate young minds in burning bushes and resurrections. But here in New England which is beginning to show its age the best thing ever is to never again have to hear "I'm Linda McMahan and I approve this message" over and over and over.
Dear Ken––your humanity is admirable and I was moved by your comments. It takes great leaps to have that kind of understanding and I think it shows a most largesse of tolerance. There are others in our history that we simply cannot excuse or find reasons for their views and actions, but for the very many more we can try to.
And am glad you liked the biscuits.
I cannot overstate what a pleasure it is to read the commentary here, even where there is disagreement.
@Ken Winkes. Bear in mind that there were white people of that lady's generation who did not share her views. My grandfather, who was born in 1884, is a case in point. Was he a great civil rights leader? Not at all. He was an ordinary person who simply didn't harbor the kind of racial prejudice that informed your hostess. My mother once told me of a dinner-table discussion that took place around the time the D.A.R. refused to allow Marian Anderson to perform in their hall. Somehow the discussion turned on whether or not my grandparents would have dinner with Anderson if they were invited to do so (I don't think they were invited, but I could be wrong). My grandmother said absolutely not, and my grandfather said of course he would -- that Anderson was a great talent & it would be an honor to be seated next to her.
But he did not reserve his opinion for exceptional people of color. My uncle told me of a time (in the 1930s) when the family was living in Florida & they passed a black family stuck on the side of a rural road in need of a spare tire. As it happened, the family was stopped nearly in front of a white-owned gas station, but they weren't going to get any help there. So my grandfather stopped, picked up the tire & carried into the gas station, where he was met with protest. My grandfather, who was the most imperious person you would never hope to meet, ordered the attendant to give him a new tire (or patch the one he had), and the fellow did the job. My grandfather took the tire back and helped put it in place.
I think there must have been millions of Americans of that generation who were like my grandfather, though no doubt there were millions more who were more like my grandmother. My grandparents were reared in more-or-less the same cultural milieu, so I can't account for the difference in their attitudes about race. But somehow my grandfather got it right & my grandmother got left behind, like the lady outside San Antonio.
Marie
That's good to hear, Marie. As long as you enjoy the commentary Reality Chex provokes, I'll assume chances improve that you will continue to do all the hard work you do for the rest of us, keeping the site up and open, for which I can't thank you enough. Believe me, the pleasure you feel is very mutual.
Now that I think of it, though, keeping you happy with our commentary is a heavy responsibility. I hope we're up to it...
Ken Winkes: Think on the maid/cook. What terrors could Hell hold for someone who lived there all their lives?
Re: "Now that I think of it, though, keeping you happy with our commentary is a heavy responsibility. I hope we're up to it..." Ken Winkes. Whoa there big fella'. How 'bout "slightly amused" ?
@Ken; I agree; you can't judge the past without acknowledging the corrective lens of the present.
Jefferson was a man of eclectic knowledge and a man of his times; don't drag him into our world; he doesn't fit. Nor would we in his.
@cowichan:
Of course, I thought of the maid/cook and have done so many times since. Though I did not talk to her other than to say hello and had no clear sense of what she thought or felt, she was a loud tho' silent presence in the disturbing tableau I tried to describe.
The point I might not have made clearly is that for me the essence of a liberal education and of liberalism itself, both of which I hope you understand I value highly, is open-mindededness, tolerance and humility. Applied to the Texas scene of long ago, I felt at the time and still do that no aggressive discussion of race relations in that antiquated household was not going to change anyone's minds...but that that certain failure did not make the fine biscuits any worse.
Nor when discussing and judging historical figures should we apply contemporary standards to all they did and said. When it comes to Jefferson, I have read much less than idolatrous about him but remain grateful for more that he said and did. If he lived today, he should surely and rightly be judged by different standards but to criticize him for being less than the ideal man we would have liked him to be is to impose unrealistic and, I believe, arrogant and unfair standards on someone who lived so long ago we cannot possibly see any more deeply into his heart than I could into that of the maid/cook who served that table that long ago day in Texas. Like religion, those kinds of judgments too often serve as little more than, as I have termed them, short cuts to feelings of underserved superiority. I think them often intolerant, illiberal if you will, expansive of our egos at the expense of our understanding.
Was Jefferson a good or a bad man? Knowing what I do about him, I would not have wished to be his political enemy or for that matter his mistress or his wife. But that does not mean I cannot treasure the greater part of his legacy that gave us the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clarke expedition, the university he founded, his thoughts on public education, his support of the fledgling sciences, and his "wall of separation" between church and state.
And those items by themselves--there are many others--make an unsurpassed plate of tasty biscuits I am not willing to reject with the imperfect man.
Hey--there were many much better people than Jefferson in his own time, as Marie's example of her grandfather suggests. Not saying Jefferson was unique, as reading slave narratives of the nineteenth century show, and abundantly. But a great soul? A founding father to be proud of? A Jesse Helms of his time?
And his problems with women--that can't help but resonate here. I mean, for women today. There are many men whose admirable writing skills bring them to our attention, and then there are those whose private lives we find creepy. John Milton, for example. When I was teaching Paradise Lost--great poem--I could not help but pick at him for his wonderful gender description:
He for God only, she for God in him.
And besides, all that fruit diet, no wonder they did not wear clothes.
Jefferson has been standing for America and carrying the moral character of the country on his back for a few centuries. His load has been heavy and cumbersome since no historical figure can bear this kind of symbolic burden and still remain a real person. This man was essentially a man of the eighteenth century with all his foibles, strengths, follies, wisdom and as much blindness as foresight. I think part of the problem here is that since he has stood for America, if we find him so wanting, we realize that America, too, was/is wanting and for some that's a reality that's hard to face. Whom among our historical figures is without feet of clay? It's on the tip of my tongue––hence, we have someone who came to save the day, died for our sins. Who the hell can beat that for a legacy?
Somewhat relevant to this thread is a marvelous 2011 Washington Post piece by historian David Sehat: Five Myths About Church and State in America. He confirms a number of suspicions of mine, esp. when he points out that our founders "punted the issue of religion to the states." Hilariously, when Sehat's piece ran at Huff-Po, the usual imbeciles branded him a tea-bagger. In fact, he's clearly quite progressive, given his main point--that religious freedom has been, throughout most of our history, pretty nonexistent.
Lovely to see someone call out the false either/or that is the modern discussion of state/church separation. Our big town newspaper, by the way, didn't run a letter I emailed in response to a local atheist's claim that Congress can't be caught "respecting an establishment of religion" (widely misquoted on line as "respecting THE establishment of..." ). I pointed out that, at least to trained readers, "respecting an" means "in regard to."
For someone who allegedly placed so much importance on the wall of separation, Jefferson sure gave us next to nothing to go by. No specifics; just vague directions to Congress. Or did he map out the essentials of state/church separation someplace? Abstract principles need to be lined out to be of any use.
@Raul. At any rate, I think you will find this Library of Congress analysis of Jefferson's famous letter to the Danbury Baptists interesting. It was, it seems, intended to be a political document more than a statement of principle. As you'll see from reading the analysis, Jefferson's views about the "wall of separation" evolved from the time he (& James Madison) managed to get religious freedom into Virginia law (Statute for Religious Freedom, written 1777) & 1802, when he wrote the letter to the Danbury Baptists.
It's important to bear in mind that the kind of "establishment of religion" that concerned the founders related to taxation; the colonial governments & later the states taxed non-Anglicans to maintain the Anglican clergy. Needless to say, the non-Anglicans objected. That's the sort of "establishment" that Virginia, and eventually the new federal Constitution & other states banned.
As to writing down hard rules, I'm glad Jefferson didn't. That is among those Constitutional elements that I think should remain ambiguous enough to allow future generations to make "adjustments."
Marie
@PD Pepe-
One last thought about historical figures (let's include celebrities, since this is America). Of course they have feet of clay. We all do. However, my curiosity extends to how it is that so many Americans seem to need to deify people, who may or may not be humanistic, compassionate or honorable?
Many insist our VIP people--in history or today--be demi-gods. Smarter, better somehow than the rest of us. In making them so, we demean ourselves and the very idea of being human. I cannot help but think how the Republicans and Tea Baggers have turned this American habit on its head, by insisting that Barack Obama is NOT smarter or better than the rest of us--but different. Other. Not in our exceptional country born. I have concluded the only possible reason for this is that Obama is only half-white. Like Thomas Jefferson's children and their children, who (until very recently) have not been included as part of the larger family system.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
@Marie, the Hutson piece confirms what I've read elsewhere--namely, that the trend of involving govt. IN religion, though not currently endorsed by mainline Christians, is a fairly recent reversal of what was the original popular definition of c/s separation, i.e. government-stay-out. An ironic reversal, of course.
Interesting piece--thank you. Of course, c/s separation was, to a huge extent, a British-vs.-American gesture, a declaration that we were dispensing with that particular tradition, so I'm not surprised that the D. Baptist letter was a political act. I agree with your point about hard rules, and I wish everyone did. Unfortunately, the C. continues to be used like a 1,000-page legal document with the expectation that answers for every issue and situation are there someplace if we just look hard enough. Before long, we're doing the equivalent of reading tea leaves. Yes, the C. was written as a flexible, "living" document, and, as recently noted by E.J. Dionne, we treat it otherwise. That's why I wish Jefferson had spelled it out for modern dummies (a group from which I do not exclude Raul).
@ Kate––you betcha!