Constitutional Crisis, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #109

January 4, 2011 Arthur Tebbel 2 Comments

Dear Art,

This year, when we start the new session of Congress, my caucus plans to read the U.S. Constitution in its entirety to start things off.  We hope that this gesture, which will take about an hour, will refocus our legislature towards the founding document of our country and make them cognizant that all laws must adhere to these rules.  We’re pretty sure this idea is a home run but you’re an expert in public relations, what do you think?

-Rep. Michele Bachman (R.-MN)

Michelle,

I think this plan is going to backfire on you spectacularly.  What are you going to do when you get to the Sixteenth Amendment, which gives Congress the power to levy income taxes?  That kind of strikes a blow to the Tea Party and their anti-tax insanity.  It’s right there in the Constitution.  Or the Twenty-First, which repeals prohibition on alcohol.  Doesn’t really fit with your die-hard adherence to the modern drug wars.  I won’t even get into the interstate commerce clause that has pretty much been the basis of every federal program that gets you all so heated.

There’s also the matter of the extremely embarrassing slavery stuff in there.  I’m not naïve enough to think that racism is over in this country or that there are no lingering effects of hundreds of years of slavery.  That said there’s certainly no way that reading things covering what fraction of a person black people count as can help anything along.  As a bonus this will come the same week you kick out Michael Steele as head of the Republican National Committee.  Maybe you could complete the trifecta and burn a cross on the White House lawn.  At least you don’t have your conservative action conference being torn apart by their seemingly innocuous decision to allow gay people to attend.  Oh wait.

Honestly, you should have been on my list of people I wasn’t going to answer questions from anymore and, I assure you, you’ll be on it from this point forward.  You and your ilk are just crazy.  The fact that you now have enough sway in the Congressional majority to pull these crazy stunts on the actual floor of Congress is utterly disgusting.  People like you should be confined to cable access or soapboxes on street corners.  The problems with this country don’t come from laws that overreach Constitutional authority; it comes from all the time spent wasting time on petty political games.  Grow up.