Those dumb, dangerous, 'fundamentalist' constitutionalists

By Mark J. Fitzgibbons

Bill Schneider of CNN political analysis fame echoes the new line of attack on Tea Partiers in his piece at Politico, Tea party: Political fundamentalists.

He writes, "The tea party is a political fundamentalist movement. Like religious fundamentalists, its members do not tolerate waverers . . . They drive out heretics . . . They punish unbelievers . . . And they believe in the total inerrancy of scripture - in this case, the U.S. Constitution as originally written in 1787."

Dahlia Lithwick and her two Slate colleagues, Emily Bazelon and Hanna Rosen, used that theme of confluence of Biblical and constitutional fundamentalism in their online chatty posts, Decoding Christine O'Donnell. Lithwick's post in particular raised howls of amazement at her constitutional ignorance, and from many sources.

It is no stretch to understand what liberals are trying to do. ‘Fundamentalists' conjures up visions of snake handlers and the like. You know, all the people made fun of by smart city-folk.

Post 9/11, fundamentalism is a term associated with Al-Qaeda.

So, the new liberal meme is that the Tea Party, with its emphasis on constitutionalism, is a bunch of dumb and dangerous ‘fundamentalists.'

Mr. Schneider also repeats the left-wing meme that "tea partiers are anti-government." Now, that's dumb. The Constitution established our government, and created its structure, authorities and limitations. Therefore, how can we be pro-Constitution yet anti-government?

Anti-lawbreaking government? We are that.

To those of us who believe the Constitution is the law that government must follow, or amended only as provided in that governing document and not through fiat or usurpation, transparent attacks devoid of fact and logic like those of Ms. Lithwick and Mr. Schneider merely remind us how important it is that we proceed and succeed.