More On Palin’s Constitutional Scholarship

Ken AshfordConstitution, Election 2008Leave a Comment

Hopefully you've heard by now Palin's blunder.  It boils down to this:

Media Criticism of My Criticism of Obama = First Amendment Violation

Brian Beutler says that Palin has a "third grader's understanding of Constitutional rights" and asks:  

If the conservative media convinces enough voters that Barack Obama is a Muslim, does that violate his right to freedom of religion?

Very true.

By the same token, the First Amendment also protects the "freedom of association".  Doesn't Palin, under her own reasoning, threaten Obama's First Amendment rights, when she criticizes his "associations"?

Jonathan Schwarz has the audio of Palin, issuing her constitutional warning, here.  It's actually more painful to hear it than read it, because you can hear her thinking about the analysis she's making as it leaves her mouth, and she clearly believes she's actually making an important and profound point about First Amendment rights.

No More Mr. Nice Blog calls it: AMENDMENT 1.5: THE RIGHT OF WHITE REPUBLICANS NOT TO BE MADE UNCOMFORTABLE

And here's Palin's Constitution from a commentor at Washington Monthly:

Amendment 1: Congress (nor the states, the media, George Soros, or liberal bloggers) shall make any law (or defamation suit, elitist editorial, blog post, or Keith Olbermann special comment) abridging (or criticizing or even fact-checking) the freedom of Republican speech, or the right of racists and other violent, ignorant mobs to assemble. Democrats, well, that's another matter.

Sarah's whining about the media threatening her First Amendment rights is very "Help! Help! I'm being repressed", isn't it?