Oct 26, 2007

Recycled Disinfo

by Liberty and Power

[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

I just saw Lynne Cheney interviewed on the Daily Show, and she made the same argument as the one that Lindsey Graham made in January – that the lack of progress in Iraq is no big deal, since it also took the United States a fair while after the revolution to get a constitution.

What I said then still applies:

Sorry, no. The United States’ first constitution was adopted provisionally in 1777, and formally ratified in 1781. What is conventionally called “the” U.S. Constitution was the second one. ... And if [Cheney] is suggesting that the level of civil chaos in Iraq today is comparable to that of the United States in the 1780s, I think the historians among us might venture a dissent.

More Comments:

David T. Beito - 10/29/2007

Excellent response. The authors of the of our first constitution are the Rodney Dangerfields of American history.

Sudha Shenoy - 10/27/2007

So Iraqis have no history of their own? They're just 18th century Americans wearing long robes & dishtowels on their heads? Nonamerica is only a mirror of America?

Sheldon Richman - 10/26/2007

The comment by Graham prompted this response from me.