On March 18, 2008, Barack Obama made a speech on race relations in the United States. Commentators have made every effort to fellate this speech, Jon Stewart proclaiming that finally a politician talked to Americans like adults. The first paragraph of Obama's speech quotes from and explains the first line and origins of the Constitution so horribly I couldn't read the rest:

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

Well, except for the part about a hall, that's not at all what happened. The short story is “No,” the longer story is “Exactly the opposite.” Considering Barack Obama is a constitutional lawyer, I'd expect him not to give the whitewashed Disney version. Here's the real story:

After Declaration of Independence and before the last battle of the Revolutionary War, the Articles of Confederation became the first constitution of the United States. Creating a weak central government, the new nation's elite were almost unable to stop Shays' Rebellion which consisted of indebted Massachusetts farmers. The farmers rose up because through higher taxes they were paying rich bankers who had loaned the state government money to finance the revolution. Inability to pay meant seizure of land which led to destitution and disenfranchisement, quite ironic since many of the farmers, including the rebellion's namesake, had fought in the revolution.

The Constitution was then made to “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority”, in the words of James Madison, the main author and future president. So, in effect, the Constitution was created to stop democracy (especially with the obstacles required for amendments), quite the opposite of what Obama claims.

And what's this nonsense about “statesmen and patriots” traveling across an ocean? Almost all of the founders were born in the colonies. Now we have a president who can't speak English; soon we'll have one who thinks the Founding Fathers came over on the Mayflower.

If you wouldn't want a constitutional lawyer who knows so little about the Constitution, why would you want him to be the President?