What does it take to win a Pulitzer Prize or write editorials for the Washington Post? Hard to say [though being a liberal certainly helps], but familiarity with the basic constitutional principles upon which our country was founded is apparently not required.
On today's Morning Joe, Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post editorialist Jonathan Capehart apologized to Senator Tom Coburn for being unfamiliar with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Enumerated Powers clause. As you'll see from the clip, Capehart's befuddlement regarding the clause seemed to extend beyond the specific article number to the very principle that it embodies. View the video after the jump.
TOM COBURN: The Tea Party is every person in America who really is fed up with Washington and recognizes the way we got there was abandoning core principles of our country, but also abandoning the Constitution.
. . .
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Senator Coburn, it's Jonathan Capehart. I want to bring you back to something you said when you first came on. You were talking about people in the Tea Party who are fed up with Washington and for the abandonment of the Constitution. Could you please tell me how and when did we abandon the Constitution?
COBURN: Yeah, I can. Go read Article 1, Section 8, and it gives the enumerated powers, and what you're seeing happen, and this has been a progressive thing, the courts have abandoned the Constitution by not holding the Congress accountable to stay within Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
. . .
CAPEHART: I'm sorry, Congressman, um, Senator, Article 1, Section 8? I should know this, but I don't.
COBURN: It's the enumerated powers. It's what the Founders gave us as the authority within which we can work.
