Background: a few weeks back Time magazine published, as its cover story, an article by Richard Stengel on the Constituion.  Reading it, I was stunned to discover fourteen clear factual errors in his piece, and I have been on a bit of a crusade since then to force Time to either correct or retract the article.  And in the process I have been examining how other media outlets and organizations have treated Stengel.

Now, on the right we have the Federalist Society, a group of generally conservative scholars and other interested citizens devoted to the preservation of the Constitution.  So the left decided it needed an organization like this too, so someone formed the American Constitution Society (ACS), meant to be a liberal alternative to the Federalist Society.  (This shouldn’t be confused with the National Constitution Center, which by all appearances is an unrelated entity.)  They state on their website that:

The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) promotes the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and the fundamental values it expresses: individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, access to justice, democracy and the rule of law. The abiding principles are reflected in the vision of the Constitution’s framers and the wisdom of forward-looking leaders who have shaped our law throughout American history.

So they seem to care about the Constitution itself, or at least that is the implication.  So I found it curious that their website presented Richard Stengel’s piece on the Constitution without any criticism.  Go ahead, read their blog entry announcing Stengel’s piece.  It’s not long.  If they aren’t endorsing it (and it sure sounds like they are), they are definitely promoting it and without the slightest hint of criticism.

But even worse than that, they actually quote from this passage, again without a word of criticism:

If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn’t say so. Article I, Section 8, the longest section of the longest article of the Constitution, is a drumroll of congressional power. And it ends with the ‘necessary and proper’ clause, which delegates to Congress the power ‘to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department of Officer thereof.’ Limited government indeed.

(Emphasis added.)  That is right, they actually quote from Stengel when he claims that there are no explicit limitations on Federal power in the Constitution.  Folks, do I even have to explain why this is wrong, again?  Even leaving aside the entire Bill of Rights, the Constitution is filled with limitations—primarily in Article I, Section 9, which includes (among other things) the following:

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.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

These are each limits on the government.  But for one reason or another, the American Constitution Society quoted where Stengel said that there were no explicit limits on the Federal Government without challenge, sending its readership unsuspecting to the Time magazine article with no indication that they even noticed such a basic error.

And indeed, the sole comment on the post is written by a man claiming to be Jonathan Adler (of Volokh).  It says:

Whatever one may think of Stengel’s overall thesis, it is embarrassing that Time magazine would publish an article so riddled with basic factual errors (e.g. attributing provisions of the 13th and 15th Amendment to the 14th Amendment, claiming the Constitution prohibited female suffrage prior to the 19th Amendment, etc.). Even more embarrassing is for so many basic errors to be made by the former CEO of the National Constitution Center. So I find it odd that the essay would be promoted by an organization like ACS.

I am willing to bet that is Adler since he complained to me specifically about that blog post.  And yet despite the fact that this comment was written the day after the post first appeared, that entry remains, without any update contradicting or criticizing of Stengel’s piece.

Now, on their “Contact Us” page, they say:

If you are a member of the press seeking a statement from a legal or policy expert, please contact Alex Wohl, [email] or  Jeremy Leaming, [email].

So I decided to seek their expertise…

Dear Sir,

My name is Aaron Worthing, Esq.  The ACS site asserts that if I would like a statement from a legal or policy expert, I should write to you both.  So I formally request your expert opinion on the subject of Richard Stengel’s cover story for Time magazine, entitled “One Document, Under Siege.” As an attorney and a student of history, I found fourteen clear factual errors in Mr. Stengel’s piece, which I documented here.

Limiting the list of errors to those that concern the interpretation of the Federal Constitution, they are:

The Constitution does not limit the Federal Government.

The Constitution is not law.

The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment emancipated the slaves.

The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to African Americans.

The original Constitution declared that black people were to be counted as three-fifths of a person.

The original, unamended Constitution prohibited women from voting.

The Commerce Clause grants Congress the power to tax individuals based on whether they buy a product or service.

Social Security is a debt within the meaning of Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment.

So I would like it if you would share your expert opinion on the subject. Am I correct in assessing that Mr. Stengel has made each of those errors?  And if not, why not?

And I also ask whether the ACS will join me in calling for Time magazine to either retract or correct that article.  The ACS bills itself as a society devoted to the Constitution and states that it is seeking to “revitalize[e] and transform[] legal and policy debates in classrooms, courtrooms, legislature and the media, and we are building  a diverse and dynamic network of progressives committed to justice.”  I have no doubt that your organization wants people to learn what is actually in the Constitution and not misinformation.

I thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Aaron Worthing, Esq.

We shall see what their reaction might be.

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This post was adapted from a substantially similar post at Patterico’s Pontifications.

Holder’s Justice Department released a legal opinion last week that allows the Obama administration to ignore the will of Congress which has voted overwhelmingly to suspend federal funding of ACORN until at least Dec. 18. He’s also ignored the 88-page report on ACORN’s systemic corruption and flagrant racketeering activities that was issued this summer by Republican investigators on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Apparently, public outrage at the continuing antics of the corrupt radical advocacy group that used to employ President Obama and White House political director Patrick Gaspard counts for nothing.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (center) with ACORN ally Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (left), and former California Gov. Gray Davis (right).

But Americans really shouldn’t be surprised that Attorney General Holder is bending over backwards to help his radical friends at ACORN.

Holder, whom I’ve long argued is unfit to serve as the federal government’s chief law enforcement officer, supports ACORN’s goals.

ACORN wants to use the power of government to bring about a radical transformation of American society.

So does Holder.

He is unapologetic about his desire to force Big Government down the throats of Americans. Holder rarely misses an opportunity to advocate expanding the size and scope of the federal government. He told a 2004 gathering of the left-wing American Constitution Society, “Government has been the primary force for positive social change in our country’s history. It can be again.”

Like ACORN, he thinks electoral fraud is a myth manufactured by people who want to disenfranchise minorities and the poor. “I think there is a feeling among Republicans that there is a widespread amount of voter fraud out there. I don’t think the statistics actually would substantiate it,” he told Fox News in 2004.

When Darnell Nash, whom ACORN registered to vote nine times, was convicted of vote fraud –not just mere voter registration fraud— in Cleveland earlier this year, Holder couldn’t be bothered to comment. A spokesman for Cleveland prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat, told me last month that a local investigation of ACORN remains wide open.

Like ACORN, Holder supports the so-called Fairness Doctrine that would force conservative talk radio hosts off the air Hugo Chavez-style. He told the American Constitution Society:

The nation must be reminded that the word liberal is more than a conservative slur. The nation must be reminded that it was the progressive, liberal tradition that brought about the social and economic changes that were necessary many years ago. The nation must be convinced that it is a progressive future that holds the greatest promise for equality and the continuation of those policies that serve to support the greatest number of our people. In the short term this will not be an easy task. With the mainstream media somewhat cowered by conservative critics, and the conservative media disseminating the news in anything but a fair and balanced manner, and you know what I mean there, the means to reach the greatest number of people is not easily accessible.

Also like ACORN, Attorney General Holder hates conservatives. Viscerally.

His public utterances are weighted down with the same old tiresome liberal clichés about those on the right one might find on the ultra left-wing Daily Kos hate site.

Holder told the American Constitution Society gathering that “conservatives have been defenders of the status quo, afraid of the future, and content to allow to continue to exist all but the most blatant inequalities.” They have “made a mockery of the rule of law.” Conservatives try to “put the environment at risk for the sake of unproven economic theories, to play to the fears of our citizens, and not to their hopes, and to return the nation to a time that in fact never existed.”

Conservatives are “breathtaking” in their “arrogance,” Holder claimed. “From redistricting schemes, to attacks on abortion rights, to energy policies that are as shortsighted as they are ineffective, to tax cuts that disproportionately favor those who are well off and perpetuate many of the inequities in our nation, the conservative movement has been unafraid to push the limits in advancing this agenda.”

Holder denounced what he called “the conservative agenda of social division, mindless tax cutting, and a defense posture that does not really make us safer.”

ACORN’s chief organizer Bertha Lewis couldn’t have said it better.

Holder also has a long history of involvement in charities and nonprofits that seek to stick it to conservatives.

He has been a member of the board of directors of the American Constitution Society. The ACS believes in the myth of the “living” Constitution and views the limits that great charter places on government power as quaint anachronisms to be overcome through clever legal sophistry.

ACS is, of course, funded by the big players in left-wing political finance, including members of the billionaires’ club, the Democracy Alliance. Reliably liberal benefactors of ACS include George Soros’s Open Society Institute ($2,201,500 since 2002), Ford Foundation ($600,000 since 2003), Sandler Foundation ($200,000 in 2003), Tides Foundation ($25,000 since 2002), Barbra Streisand Foundation ($20,000 since 2002).

Meanwhile, it has been exhaustively documented that Holder has what could charitably be called a cavalier approach to a key civil right, you know, that inconvenient, archaic one described in the Second Amendment that the media wishes we would all forget about.

As the Independent Institute’s Stephen P. Halbrook, author of The Founder’s Second Amendment, told a Senate panel considering Holder’s nomination at the beginning of the year, “many Americans have reason to be uneasy about Mr. Holder’s nomination for attorney general. They deserve to have a person in this role who is committed to upholding all parts of the Constitution, including the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, Mr. Holder has proven himself not to be that person.”

As deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Holder pushed for federal licensing of handgun owners and federal registration of guns, waiting periods for gun purchases, and rationing of handgun sales. The former Janet Reno acolyte signed on to a pro-gun prohibition amicus curiae brief in District of Columbia v. Heller, last year’s groundbreaking Supreme Court case in which justices struck down the District’s oppressive handgun ban.

Like Holder, ACORN has long supported gun control. Content to leave poor people in the inner city defenseless at the hands of violent criminals, ACORN intervened in court to defend a Jersey City, N.J., gun control ordinance.