O’Donnell might have been correct but all she did in the debate was ask her opponent if the Constitution really did declare ‘separation of church and state’. Especially after the audience giggled she needed to give a lecture on what exactly the constitution said and didn’t say.
I came away thinking O’Donnell didn’t understand what was going on during that part of the debate.
O’Donnell was in over her head.
“I came away thinking O’Donnell didn’t understand what was going on during that part of the debate.”
Exactly, Coons correctly identified and recited nearly verbatim the portion of the First Amendment upon which liberals base their argument that a strict separation must be maintained between the workings of government and the symbols, values and precepts of particular religons. He didn’t say that the Constitution included the words separation of church and state. O’Donnell, apparently cluesless, then mockingly replied something to the effect of “so you really think that is in there?”, suggesting that she had caught Coons stating that the words separation of church and state actually are in the Constitution when he said nothing of the sort. The law students in the audience, well aware of the legal arguments employed in the relevant Supreme Court cases, could only laugh at Miss “I am You” O’Donnell’s “gotcha” moment.
Look, I disagree with Coons’s position on this issue, but he made the appropriate debating point in this argument. O’Donnell, so far as I can tell, was out to lunch. I hope she pulls off an upset, we need her vote when the chairmanships and staff budgets in the Senate are voted on, but even if she does she will be an embarrassment to our cause. She’s not ready for prime time.
Really? I came away with the impression that O'Donnell was the only one in the room who had actually read and understood the Constitution and its position on the establishment of a state sponsored religion versus the separation issue. It's a damned shame (and scary) that she would have to explain it to a group of law students. The fact that they giggled at her completely valid comments makes it obvious to anyone who has studied the Federalist Papers that she was the only one in the room with a grasp of the meaning of the first Amendment. Maybe she should have handed out a few copies of the Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights so that those ignorant souls in the crowd could enlighten themselves?