Our Imbecile Constitution?

There's an interesting opinion piece in the NY Times today, called Our Imbecile Constitution.
Lest the title seem unnecessarily offensive, it is taken from the Federalist Papers, in which the authors referred to the Articles of Confederation as imbecilic.

Nowadays we have to speak of the constitution reverentially.  Mitt Romney and the Mormon church go so far as to think it was either written by Gawd (and, I don't know, maybe found under a rock in a forest in upstate New York?) or at least divinely inspired.

According to the author of this current piece, it hasn't always been so in our history:

In the election of 1912, two presidents — past and future — seriously questioned the adequacy of the Constitution. Theodore Roosevelt would have allowed Congress to override Supreme Court decisions invalidating federal laws, while Woodrow Wilson basically supported a parliamentary system...

Apropos of Wilson's ideas, I remember reading in the midst of the months-long "Watergate nightmare," how the situation was being prolonged because of our particular constitutional system.  In a parliamentary system, Nixon would have received a no-confidence vote and been gone in a relative heartbeat.

But if one must choose the worst single part of the Constitution, it is surely Article V, which has made our Constitution among the most difficult to amend of any in the world. The last truly significant constitutional change was the 22nd Amendment, added in 1951, to limit presidents to two terms. The near impossibility of amending the national Constitution not only prevents needed reforms; it also makes discussion seem futile and generates a complacent denial that there is anything to be concerned about.

By contrast, according to the author, there have been "more than 230" state constitutional conventions (how many more? one wonders). He claims that each state has had an average of almost three constitutions.


The electoral system is a good example of a discussion that seems futile.  Everybody agrees it makes no sense and needs to end, but nothing happens, or is likely going to happen.  In the meanwhile, the 2012 presidential election is going to be decided in 11 or so key battleground states.  We have the real possibility of once again electing a president who loses the popular vote...a sentence which ignores the dysfunctional nature of what our constitution allowed to happen in 2000, and presumes we actually did elect Bush over Gore.


Romney, in defending his courtship of Donald Trump's money and support was quoted today as saying:

“You know, I don’t agree with all the people who support me, and my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in....but I need to get 50.1 percent or more, and I’m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”

My first thought is to wonder what planet he's been living on.  He should know that he doesn't need to get 50.1 percent of the vote.