Does no one read the $&@%*#$ Constitution anymore?
I took in a little bit of the CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential debate last night. This is the one where supposedly ordinary citizens could submit questions via YouTube and those questions would form the basis of the debate. Anderson Cooper (theoretically) moderated.
From a schadenfreude perspective, I thoroughly enjoyed the back-and-forth sniping, and the Jerry Springer-esque booing from the audience at certain points. However, I reached my limit with one particular question, when someone held up a Bible and asked this question (I'm paraphrasing here):
"I'm going to ask you a question whose answer will tell us all we need to know about every one of you: do you believe that every single word of this book is true?"
Now it's not the question itself that bothers me per se. This person was perfectly within his rights to ask it, and the people at CNN were perfectly within their rights to include it as a question in the debate. The problem is how the question was answered -- or more accurately, how it was *not* answered.
What am I getting at? For a clue, here's a selection from the U.S. Constitution -- you know, the foundation of our nations's laws, which each and every President takes an oath to preserve, protect, and defend:
Article VI: Debts, Supremacy, Oaths
"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
My point is, nobody at that debate mentioned this important Constitutional tidbit. Not one of the candidates, not Mister AC-360, and not one person in the often-raucous audience (including attending Huckabee supporter Chuck Norris). A citizen said: your religious opinion tells us all we need to know to decide whether you should be president. And no one onstage or off objected to that at all.
Am I the only one who has a problem with that?
From a schadenfreude perspective, I thoroughly enjoyed the back-and-forth sniping, and the Jerry Springer-esque booing from the audience at certain points. However, I reached my limit with one particular question, when someone held up a Bible and asked this question (I'm paraphrasing here):
"I'm going to ask you a question whose answer will tell us all we need to know about every one of you: do you believe that every single word of this book is true?"
Now it's not the question itself that bothers me per se. This person was perfectly within his rights to ask it, and the people at CNN were perfectly within their rights to include it as a question in the debate. The problem is how the question was answered -- or more accurately, how it was *not* answered.
What am I getting at? For a clue, here's a selection from the U.S. Constitution -- you know, the foundation of our nations's laws, which each and every President takes an oath to preserve, protect, and defend:
Article VI: Debts, Supremacy, Oaths
"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
My point is, nobody at that debate mentioned this important Constitutional tidbit. Not one of the candidates, not Mister AC-360, and not one person in the often-raucous audience (including attending Huckabee supporter Chuck Norris). A citizen said: your religious opinion tells us all we need to know to decide whether you should be president. And no one onstage or off objected to that at all.
Am I the only one who has a problem with that?