I agree in part with Tom in that Sarah Palin’s answer to Katie Couric is a “Say What?” kind of answer. Furthermore, I also would agree that the Beltway is full of people who can cite chapter and verse SCOTUS decisions with which they agree and disagree.

But, the larger answer is “So What?” Tom’s book, Who Killed the Constitution?, pretty much tells me that it was the Really Intelligent People who killed it. No doubt, the people most responsible for destroying the U.S. Constitution could give much clearer and sharper answers to a Katie Couric than did Sarah Palin.

The Constitution was not killed out of ignorance or because people truly misunderstood what it said. No, it was killed deliberately by people who did understand what it means. G. Rexford Tugwell, one of the main architects of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, wrote:

The Constitution was a negative document, meant mostly to protect citizens from their government…. Above all, men were to be free to do as they liked, and since the government was likely to intervene and because prosperity was to be found in the free management of their affairs, a constitution was needed to prevent such intervention…. The laws would maintain order, but would not touch the individual who behaved reasonably.

To the extent that these new social virtues developed [in the New Deal], they were tortured interpretations of a document intended to prevent them. The government did accept responsibility for individuals’ well-being, and it did interfere to make secure. But it really had to be admitted that it was done irregularly and according to doctrines the framers would have rejected. Organization for these purposes was very inefficient because they were not acknowledged intentions. Much of the lagging and reluctance was owed to constantly reiterated intention that what was being done was in pursuit of the aims embodied in the Constitution of 1787, when obviously it was done in contravention of them.

So, while I readily agree that Palin’s answer did not make sense (and I suspect that she was repeating the talking points that McCain and company had given her), nonetheless being able to clearly talk about the Constitution and SCOTUS is no virtue, either.