EDITORIAL: Separate constitutional defenders from pretenders

It’s time for a constitutional gut check, America.

Now, during Constitution Week, citizens should tape their blame-pointing fingers to their fists. Instead, we should look squarely in a mirror and ask ourselves: Are we upholding our share of the bargain laid out in the summer of 1787?

But first, perhaps it would be wise to understand a little more about that bargain. There are many fine sources for constitutional enlightenment, including the daily bite-sized history bits in The Press from the Lieutenant George Farragut Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.

But if you’ll devote the time to just one book that will take you from Mount Vernon through the Revolutionary War into what’s now Independence Hall in Philadelphia and then into the embrace of a brand new nation, we humbly offer a recommendation: "Washington, A Life," by renowned biographer Ron Chernow.

Thanks to Chernow’s exceedingly readable style and exhaustive research, you’ll come away better understanding not just what the Constitution is, but why it is. You may find yourself sweating much as the original 55 delegates — winnowed to 39 by the end of that sweltering summer — did when they nailed windows shut to encourage an end to circular debate and a start to actual decision-making and united action.

Improved understanding, we feel certain, will only improve your appreciation for the profound wisdom our Founding Fathers memorialized in charting a course for what would become the most powerful nation on Earth.

But like the delegation held together by the Constitutional Convention’s president, General George Washington, at some point individual differences of opinion must give way to a grander, broader ideal. That happens only with compromise, a fleeting art in present-day America.

When you’ve honestly answered the question in front of your mirror, you’ve then earned the right to look around. You might see that a great many of the people claiming to be the Constitution’s greatest — or only — defenders are actually the greatest threat to its survival.

Know these men and women by their actions, not their words, and vote to keep them the hell out of public office.