Wingnuts: Not Exactly Constitutional Scholars

By Baxter

We cats are idly curious: How many right-wing maniacs think the U.S. census is un-American?

We know of one. He's an overweight, overindulged Republican fool named Erick Erickson, and he's come mighty close to inciting violence against census workers.

"What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work?" the pudgy Mr. Erickson recently fulminated. "I'm not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail." He then went on to describe how much he'd relish waving a shotgun at any census taker who came to his door (which happens to be in that erudite center of culture and sophistication, Macon, Georgia).

We have news for Fat Erick. Although we're not aware that it asks about flushing toilets or commuting habits, the census is authorized by the Constitution of the United States, which is about as American a document as we know. (Of course, it originally only mandated counting slaves as three-fifths of a person — an appalling circumstance rectified later by the Fourteenth Amendment).

Unfortunately, however, we fear there is no hope of rectifying the aforementioned Rotund Republican. Karl Rove, want to give it a try?