When Michele Bachmann suggested on Chris Matthews' shoutfest of a show that the media needed to investigate members of Congress to determine which of them were anti-American, she was spot on. It's high time somebody investigated congresspeople -- nay, government officials in all three branches of government -- and rooted out the anti-Americans among them. Clearly, the people who run the American goverment have nothing but loathing in their hearts for, um, the American government.
So, let's start with the basics. How do we tell the anti-American pols from the decent, Mom-and-apple-pie, pro-American ones? Well, let's take a look at the oath they swear when they get into office:
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
So, clearly, the best way to go about rooting out these horrific evildoers among our representatives would be to take a close look at who has violated this oath. After all, whether conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, I think we can all agree that the Constitution is the very foundation of this great nation of ours.
Perhaps, then, we should investigate politicians who dismiss the Constitution as "just a goddamned piece of paper." Obviously, they can't be counted on to take that oath seriously.
Similarly, anyone who dismisses the idea of three separate but co-equal branches, the fundamental basis of our Constitution and the government from which it ensues, should certainly warrant investigating. I mean, if you actually believe that, for example, the president can do absolutely anything he or she wants, with no limits, in his or her effort to protect the country, that's a pretty anti-American view.
Heck, you could even make the argument that congresspeople who don't even want to address whether a presidential action (say, for example, warrantless domestic wire-tapping) is constitutional are shirking their oaths of office, and are therefore anti-American.
But perhaps more important than any of these would be Congresspeople who defy the most basic tenets of our beloved founding document. The anti-Americans that truly need to be rooted out, tarred, feathered and cast out of Congress are the people who violate America's most cherished freedoms -- freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press, freedom of religion ... all those nifty 1st amendment things. (Not to dismiss the rest of the Bill of Rights, of course. I'm also a huge fan of numbers 2 through 10. I especially love the 4th, which brings us back to that whole wire-tapping thing. But I digress.) So, to focus just on the freedom of religion aspect for a moment, when a Congressperson claims that God has ordained their membership in Congress, not the voters themselves, and then uses her time in Congress to promote a specific Christian worldview that is held by only a slim portion of members of that religion, perhaps they are the most anti-American of all.
So, thank you, Michele Bachmann. I couldn't agree more. Let the investigations begin!