Publisher's Synopsis
A Supreme Court historian and bestselling author counters activists on the right who try to claim the Constitution as a wholly conservative document
Tea party favorite Christine O´Donnell, running for the Senate, famously floored an audience by questioning whether the First Amendment called for a separation of church and state. The Republican-run House vowed to provide a constitutional justification for every bill they passed, and then passed their first bill without doing it. What´s going on here? Peter Irons explains what many conservative activists think is in the Constitution, what´s actually in it, and why there are so many strong emotions and strange ideas about it.
- Uses some of the most outrageous and controversial conservative claims to explore the way the Constitution relates to hot-button issues, including the separation of church and state, the new health care law, states´ rights, immigration, and limits on the size of the Federal government
- Separates myth from reality, setting the record straight on the distortions and misrepresentations of the Constitution propagated by conservative Republicans and Tea Party activists
- Gives insights into why radical activists have come to worship the Constitution and use it to promote their agenda in a misinformed or uninformed way
