"The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."Michael Ledeen at PajamasMedia was the first to pick up on this with a blog post. Quoting (and linking) to Brian Lancaster at the Jumping in Pools blog, Ledeen was almost hysterical...
That’s quite an indictment, even for an Ivy League undergraduate. I wonder if the prof–and I’d like to know who the prof was–made an appropriate marginal comment, something about historical context, about the Constitution’s revolutionary status in the history of freedom, and about the separation of powers in order to make the creation of any “shackles” as difficult as possible.According the story on the Jumping in Pools blog entitled "Obama College Thesis: 'Constitution Inherently Flawed'," Time Magazine "reporter" Joe Klein was looking into Obama's academic records for an upcoming article when he ran across the thesis entitled "Aristocracy Reborn." He was only allowed to see the first ten pages of the 44-page thesis. The first inkling most people had that the story might not be true was when Joe Klein (JokeLine to most of us) said, "Huh?" (That might not be an exact quote, but is close enough.)
Maybe instead of fuming about words that Rush Limbaugh never uttered, the paladins of the free press might ask the president about words that he did write. Maybe he’d like to parse “the so-called Founders,” for example. I’d like to know what he thinks of those words today. And what about the rest of the thesis?
The Jumping in Pools blog is written by one Matthew Avitabile, whom PolitiFact describes as a "22-year-old grad student in upstate New York." Occasionally, he practices a journalistic technique commonly known as "making shit up," which is becoming more and more popular on the right. He puts together a fake news story and runs with it with only the tag "satire" to indicate that the story might not be on the up-and-up. I don't think this is a malicious thing. I think he's trying to emulate The Onion or Andy Borowitz, but doesn't quite have the humor thing down yet on a consistent basis. Although his story "Kanye West: I Had a Gluten Overdose" was fairly humorous. Some other recent "satire" tagged stories are "HHS to Vaccinate All Schoolchildren for Swine Flu," "Obama Considering Turning Off Flame at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for New 'Green' Initiative," and "Nine-Year-Old Forcefully Removed from Town Hall Meeting after Question." So guess which other story on his blog also has the "satire" tag. That's right. The one about the Obama thesis.
