I find this mistake very indicative of many of the reasons I both fear and revile Attorney General John Ashcroft:


Attorney General John Ashcroft said that God is mentioned "in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, national anthem, on our coins and in the Gettysburg Address."

Well, he was 80 percent right — but he was wrong on the most important item. The Constitution is the creation of "we, the people" and never mentions a deity aside from the pro forma phrase "in the year of our Lord."


Above quoted from this Times editorial. Although, to be honest, I care perhaps less than I should about the issue at hand in the editorial - namely, whether or not to omit "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. But I love what this guy has to say. Once again, I feel a reminder to Dear Leader might be necessary:


In the summer of 1787, with the Constitutional Convention haggling over the nation's fate, Franklin proposed opening the day's meetings with a prayer, a proposal often cited by public-prayer advocates. But these advocates leave out the rest of the story.

After Franklin's motion, Alexander Hamilton argued that if people knew that the delegates were resorting to prayer, it would be seen as an act of desperation. Then Hugh Williamson of North Carolina pointed out that the convention lacked the money to pay for a chaplain, and there the proposition died. Franklin later noted, "The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary."

Alongside Franklin's doomed proposal, George Washington's religious fervor is often cited. The father of our country was a regular churchgoer, but what's left out of the story is that he usually left services before Communion. He was a deist who called on Providence, an amorphous power he referred to as "it." Nominally Episcopalian, Washington was also a Freemason, along with many other founders. A semisecret society, Organized Freemasonry was formed in London in 1717 by a group of anticlerical free thinkers dedicated to the ideals of charity, equality, morality and service to the Great Architect of the Universe.

Then there is Jefferson, who inveighed against "every form of tyranny over the mind of man," by which he meant organized religion. In 1786, his Statute for Religious Freedom was approved by the Virginia Legislature through the efforts of James Madison, a chief architect of the Constitution and later an opponent of the practice of paying a Congressional chaplain. This statute guaranteed every Virginian the freedom to worship in the church of his choice and ended state support of the Anglican Church.

But more important than the founders's private faith was the concept that they all embraced passionately: the freedom to practice religion, as well as not to. They had risked their lives to free America from a country with an official religion and a king who claimed a divine right. They believed that government's purpose was to protect people's earthly rights, not their heavenly fates. As for Jefferson, he wrote that it made no difference to him whether his neighbor affirmed one God or 20, since, he added, "It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." (emphasis mine)

How, in over two centuries, have we managed to move so far backward on this issue? How can our own leaders have so little sense of history? How on earth can Ashcroft actually think that God is mentioned in our Constitution?! Might it be, I don't know, critical that the U.S. Attorney General be a little more familiar with our Constitution?!