BrianGarst.com

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein appeared on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown, Thursday, to mock the incoming Republicans for their stated fixation on the Constitution, asserting that the document is rather old and “confusing.” MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell dismissed the GOP effort as “lip service” and wondered if it was a “gimmick.”

After playing clips of Republicans claiming they would reject legislation that couldn’t be justified constitutionally, Klein complained, “The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done.“

“More than 100 years ago,” says the Washington Post savant who is at least 5 years old.

Debates over what the Constitution says really don’t differ all that much between people who actually bother to read or take its history seriously. What differs from person to person is how much they even care what it says.

The document itself isn’t particularly confusing. Sure, there are always debatable details and interpretations of particular phrases, but the answers to the big questions are all well known, if not as acceptable. We know, for instance, that the Constitution gives government certain enumerated powers, and reserves the rest for the people and the States. If the power isn’t listed, the federal government can’t do it. Ezra Klein and other statists don’t like this constraint, so they simply wave their hands over how “confusing” the whole mess is and proceed as if it doesn’t exist.

As we saw repeatedly in the last Congress, Democrats were open about their disdain for Constitutional restrictions on the power of Congress (“Are you serious? Are you serious?”). They didn’t bother debating what it says or meant, but contested the very idea that it mattered at all. Working to change this Congressional attitude is no gimmick; it’s just long overdue.