by Jeremy Leaming
Earlier this week, we noted a forthcoming study by a couple of law school professors, rich with data, which reveals the U.S. Constitution’s dwindling global influence. It’s not terribly surprising, other nations' governing documents, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, are more expansive than the Constitution.
As cogently noted in this blog post by David Lyle of Media Matters For America, ri
ght-wing pundits and bloggers are going ballistic, especially over Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments to an Egypt interviewer that there are other governing documents, such as South Africa’s constitution that she might consult if she were to draft a constitution “in the year 2012.”
Her comment sent the right-wing blogosphere and activists into frenzy, to say the least.
Religious Right activist Mat Staver, head of the Liberty Counsel and founder of the late Jerry Falwell’s law school, fired off a press statement calling Ginsburg’s comments “unacceptable.” He said she spoke “derisively” of the nation’s founding document, and that she has undermined the “Supreme Court as an institution dedicated to the rule of law, as well as our founding document.”
This is typical for Staver, who is given to over-the-top rhetoric. But it’s also ridiculous. Ginsburg did not knock or degrade the U.S. Constitution in anyway, she merely pointed out the fact that there are newer governing documents that are also worthy of emulation.
Since when did the U.S. Constitution become a document that must be slavishly revered? As Lyle notes, however, this is right-wing shtick; Republicans worship the Constitution, except for possibly the Fourteenth Amendment, and the establishment clause of the First Amendment, and liberals “at best ignore and at worst actively seek to undermine it.”
Lyle documents a string of other hysterical comments from The Daily Caller to RedState.com, but says the “shrillest note” was struck by Radio host Lars Larson, who on Fox News, tarred Ginsburg as “anti-American.”
As is the wont for many right-wing blowhards, they pick and choose what they wish to hear. As Lyle notes, in the Egypt interview, Ginsburg “was eloquent and effusive in talking about how well the Constitution has served America ….”
He continued:
She touched on the power of the simple phrase ‘we the people,’ the vital role played by the First Amendment, the brilliant insight by the Founders that establishing three branches of government, each with a foothold in the others, would preserve a republican form of government; the importance of guaranteeing all people the equal protection of the laws. In short, she offered much regarding the U.S. Constitution as a source of guidance for the Egyptians’ thinking about the form their new government should take.
Lyle’s work provides a link to the unedited interview with Ginsburg. It’s an important post to disseminate widely, for right-wing pundits will likely be grousing about Ginsburg’s “attacks” on the Constitution for some time to come.
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