Constitutional Relativity
Ed Morrissey
grad-school thesis has once again made its way into the 2008 Presidential race. Previously, a 40-year-old treatise by Hillary Clinton lauding a radical leftist caused a few moments of consternation for her campaign, mostly because her husband's administration kept it suppressed until now. This time, Barack Obama may have to answer some questions regarding his views from law school about the elasticity of the Constitution, views which are less than two decades old:
Is Barack Obama a space cadet? The man who would become senator of Illinois and a top Democratic presidential contender was credited for editorial or research assistance in a page-one footnote of what may be the zaniest-titled article ever published by the Harvard Law Review: "The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What Lawyers Can Learn From Modern Physics," authored by noted legal scholar Laurence Tribe.
The 39-page densely argued treatise — think "The Paper Chase" meets "Star Trek" — argues that constitutional jurisprudence should be updated in a similar way that Einstein's theory of relativity replaced Newtonian mechanics, a view that would release judges from the original intent of the Founders of America. ...
No, Obama is not a space cadet -- but in this case, that isn't a good thing. What Obama wanted to do in this treatise is to disconnect the text of the Constitution from its application. ...
