Last night I, like quite a few others, I would imagine, followed links from Glenn Greenwald and other liberal bloggers and sent Christopher Dodd a letter of support for his principled stand on retroactive immunity for the telecoms and the constitution in general. He had not been my candidate of choice, but I had heard some things I liked in recent weeks.
I received a follow up email shortly thereafter with the lead sentence:
"Are you willing to go to the mat to restore the Constitution?"
Of course, 'going to the mat' meant contributing to Dodd's campaign. I did, and I feel fine about it. Feel free to do the same.
No doubt, given the high profile bloggers alerting their audiences to Dodd's stand, his campaign got a good injection of cash and hence 'vital spirits'. And good for him.
But it is weird isn't it? A second tier Democratic presidential candidate getting traction because he is willing to go 'to the mat' to restore the constitution.
Do you remember some years back when a judge in California ruled that the 'pledge to allegiance' is unconstitutional because of the phrase 'under God'? I do.
CNN reports:
Outraged lawmakers on both sides of the aisle blasted the ruling as "outrageous," "nuts," and "stupid." The U.S. Senate was so outraged by the decision that it passed a resolution 99-0 "expressing support for the Pledge of Allegiance" and asking Senate counsel to "seek to intervene in the case."
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri, was one of many lawmakers who immediately reacted in anger and shock to the ruling.
"Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok," Bond said. "What's next? Will the courts now strip 'so help me God' from the pledge taken by new presidents?"
At one point late Wednesday about 100-150 House members, mostly Republicans, gathered on the steps outside the Capitol and recited the Pledge of Allegiance in a show of support.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said President Bush believes the ruling is "ridiculous."
Lawmakers blast Pledge ruling
I remember a bipartisan group reciting the pledge for the cameras - can't remember who was there other than Daschle - pretty sure he was there.
Kit Bond's comments are priceless. After all the 'founding fathers' wouldn't have a clue about the 'pledge'.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written for the popular children's magazine Youth's Companion by Christian Socialist author and Baptist minister Francis Bellamy on September 7, 1892. The owners of Youth's Companion were selling flags to schools, and approached Bellamy to write the Pledge for their advertising campaign. It was marketed as a way to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus arriving in the Americas and was first published on the following day.
From Wikipedia
I love it that it was written by a Baptist Socialist [how many of those do you know?] in the service of children flogging flags.
However, I think it is safe to assume that the founders, the folks who wrote the constitution, were familiar with that document. I'm willing to go out on a limb here and suggest that they thought it was important. They apparently thought 'habeus corpus' important as well:
The United States Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in the Suspension Clause, located in Article One, Section 9. It states: The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.
Habeus Corpus
'Rebellion' or 'invasion'. Seems clear. Right? So far as I know, no bipartisan groups from Congress are reading that out loud on the steps of the White House, or for the cameras.