Quote-mining the Constitution

Over at headsup: the blog, Fred tackles another remarkable piece of quote mining, this time of the Constitution (!) by Mark Tapscott in the Washington Examiner:

... but there's a particular touch toward the end that helps put into perspective the deep, ahem, reverence that these people have for the Constitution:

Conservative journalists will do well not to roll their eyes impatiently with liberal colleagues who don't understand that government always expands its control over any activity it either funds or regulates, and therefore must be limited at every level to well-defined, narrowly circumscribed powers that only it can fulfill, as was done by the U.S. Constitution.

Better to explain yet again that the original intention of the Founders with respect to the media -- "Congress shall make no law respecting ... the freedom of the press" - is the key to saving independent journalism.

As Fred says,

We have no idea what the Founders' "original intention" was "with respect to the media," any more than we can comprehend their original intention with regard to powered flight, the internal combustion engine and the ability of those phenomena to deliver nuclear weapons around the globe. Those things were simply inconceivable when the Founders got around to the Bill of Rights. We're fairly sure of what they thought about "the press," though we really have no idea whether "the press" as operated by Ben Franklin's older brother is supposed to be the same thing as when it's operated by Gannett or McClatchy or News Corp. That's sort of the practical minefield we operate in when we genuflect toward the 18th century.

More to the point, though, that third graf is a remarkably incompetent -- or dishonest -- elision of a fairly plain bit of text. The First Amendment doesn't say anything about the making of laws "respecting" speech and the press. The "respecting" clause is about religion (as is the subsequent one, in which the verb is "prohibiting"). The clause about the press says that Congress shall make no law "abridging" freedom of the press. The federal Freedom of Information Act is self-evidently a law "respecting" the freedom of the press, but it doesn't "abridge" that freedom. You'd like to think the "buh-buh-buh ... the CONSTITUTION!!!!" crowd could figure that out -- certainly in the guise of an alleged journalist warning other journalists about the coming Kenyan Negro Muslim Socialist apocalypse.

Indeed. (And do read the whole post.)

Here's the First Amendment, with Tapscott's version highlighted. Please note he doesn't even use as many ellipses as he should:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Honestly... I'd ask, Have these people no shame, but my reading of Fred's ongoing analysis of Fox & Friends makes it unnecessary to do.