You certainly wouldn't expect the perilously liberal New York Times to be doing cartwheels on the day Republicans take over control of the House to begin the 112th Congress.
But the disdain for conservatives on display in the Gray Lady's editorial "Pomp, and Little Circumstance" was evident in the very first sentence of the very first paragraph:
A theatrical production of unusual pomposity will open on Wednesday when Republicans assume control of the House for the 112th Congress.
And that was just the beginning, for after listing the GOP's plans for the first few days - requiring every new bill cite its Constitutional basis, repealing ObamaCare, and reading the entire Constitution aloud - the editorial board sniped:
Those who had hoped to see a glimpse of the much-advertised Republican plan to revive the economy and put Americans back to work will have to wait at least until party leaders finish their Beltway insider ritual of self-glorification. Then, they may find time for governing.
Is this group of Republicans really trying to suggest that they care more deeply about the Constitution than anyone else and will follow it more closely?
In any case, it is a presumptuous and self-righteous act, suggesting that they alone understand the true meaning of a text that the founders wisely left open to generations of reinterpretation. Certainly the Republican leadership is not trying to suggest that African-Americans still be counted as three-fifths of a person.
Would the Times have made this disgusting statement if the current White House resident wasn't black? So now even the reading of the Constitution has racist overtones?
Alas, that wasn't the end of the silliness:
There is a similar air of vacuous fundamentalism in requiring that every bill cite the Constitutional power given to Congress to enact it. The new House leadership says this is necessary because the health care law and other measures that Republicans do not like have veered from the Constitution. But it is the judiciary that ultimately decides when a law is unconstitutional, not the transitory occupant of the speaker’s chair.
Indeed, but if members of Congress had to cite the Constitutional authority of proposed legislation, maybe the nation's legislature wouldn't spend months nay years enacting bills later determined by the judiciary to be not so.
This is especially important given former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's absurd answer when asked by a CNSNews.com reporter back in October 2009, "[W]here specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?"
Listen to her response to ascertain whether or not it would be a good thing for all bills in the future to require evidence of Constitutionality:
As a Virginia federal judge in December deemed this invididual mandate un-Constitutional, Pelosi's answer quite validates why members of Congress citing such authority in bills they're proposing should be a requirement in the future.
It is nonetheless not at all surprising the Times editorial board doesn't see it that way.
