ANN ALTHOUSE ON Coons, O’Donnell, and the Separation of Church and State.

Suffice it to say that it was not stupid for O’Donnell to say “That’s in the First Amendment?” — because it’s not. Coons was presenting a version of what’s in the cases interpreting the text, not the text itself.

The 2 were talking past each other, trying to look good and make the other look bad. It is a disagreement about law between 2 individuals who are not running for judge. It’s not detailed legal analysis. It’s a political debate and this is a political disagreement. An important one, no doubt. But it can’t be resolved by laughing at one person and calling her an idiot, something I find quite repellent.

Bah. O’Donnell is so stupid, she probably thinks the Boston Tea Party took place in 1773. Dumb wingnut.

Plus, from the comments:

I don’t think they were talking past each other so much as O’Donnell was trying to get Coons to speak precisely whereas Coons wanted to speak in more general colloquial terms.

The real problem is the ignorance of the reporters and the people in the audience who couldn’t understand the point O’Donnell was trying to make and so just assumed she was being stupid. The irony being that she was right (and, on this point at least, smarter than them).

Once you understand that to the credentialed-instead-of-educated, the Constitution is a wish-fulfillment device rather than, you know, an authoritative text, it all makes sense. And there’s no real need to know or care about the words in the text, since it means whatever you want it to mean at the moment.

Meanwhile, here’s the video.

SMART DIPLOMACY: For fear of looking Muslim, Obama Won’t Visit Sikh Shrine.

H. S. Phoolka, a prominent Sikh lawyer in New Delhi, said he was disappointed that Mr. Obama would not visit the temple.

“We have worked so hard to establish in America that Sikhs have a very different identity than Muslims,” Mr. Phoolka said. “It is very unfortunate that even the White House is conveying the message that there is no difference between Muslims and Sikhs.”

The country’s in the very best of hands.

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: Hume, the Ash’arites, Causality and Islamism.

SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT: Boston Globe Columnist Dares to Question Barney Frank’s Credibility.

GOOD QUESTION: Reader J.R. Salisbury writes: “Since, DADT is suspended while being appealed and the military is accepting openly gay candidates, will Harvard now allow ROTC on their campus?”

CORY DOCTOROW: The Legal Sleaze Behind The New Bulk-Copyright Lawsuits.

JAMES TARANTO: It’s more important to avoid 2010’s mistakes than 1994’s.

BYRON YORK: Report: In Obama’s Chicago, stimulus weatherization money buys shoddy work, widespread fraud.

The study, by the Department’s inspector general, examined the work of what’s called the Weatherization Assistance Program, or WAP, in Illinois. Last year, the Department awarded Illinois $242 million, which was expected to pay for the weatherization of 27,000 homes. Specifically, Energy Department inspectors took a close look at the troubled operations of the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County, known as CEDA, which is the largest recipient of weatherization money in Illinois with $91 million to weatherize 12,500 homes. (Cook County is, of course, home to Chicago.)

The findings are grim. “Our testing revealed substandard performance in weatherization workmanship, initial assessments, and contractor billing,” the inspector general report says. “These problems were of such significance that they put the integrity of the entire program at risk.”

Department inspectors visited 15 homes that were being weatherized by CEDA and paid for by stimulus funds. “We found that 14 of the 15 homes…failed final inspection because of poor workmanship and/or inadequate initial assessments,” the report says. In eight of the homes, CEDA had come up with unworkable and ineffective plans — like putting attic insulation in a house with a leaky roof. . . . The work was not just wasteful; it was dangerous.

Kind of a metaphor, isn’t it?

UPDATE: A reader emails:

This is why the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block had such awful infrastructure. The focus is on redistribution, not the actual job at hand. There is no customer to please, just another check to glean from the government.

This is less of a metaphor and more like the first tangible evidence of the change that is coming.

I going to learn how to distill my own vodka now.

That’s a skill that will serve you well after the economic collapse . . . .

SO IS THIS HOPE, OR CHANGE? Only 1-in-4 see American Dream as still there for all.

BRAVE, BRAVE, BRAVE, BRAVE SIR ROBIN: Obama to leave town after election. But there’s precedent: “Former President Clinton took a page from a Southwest Airlines ‘Want to get away?’ commercial and left Washington for a summit in Asia immediately after Republicans won House and Senate majorities in a 54-seat tsunami in 1994. Clinton was eviscerated by the press for leaving the country after his party was left in shambles and the future of his presidency was in doubt.”

MICKEY KAUS: WHAT IS JACOB WEISBERG THINKING? “When I saw the subhed of Weisberg’s piece, I figured Thiel must be promoting some vicious Darwinian scheme to get thousands of theoretically unqualified people to drop out of college. It turns out it’s a scholarship program that offers 20 awards to people under 20 so they can ‘stop out’ of school to start businesses. Twenty. A number Weisberg conveniently omits! It’s hard to see how a program that only affects a maximum of 80 people (teams of 4 can apply) is going to undermine our humanistic system of higher education.”

Plus this: “Why be so certain about the wisdom of our current assembly-line meritocratic protocol where we load you up with a lifetime of learning at the beginning like a tank of gas?”

A MICHAEL KINSLEY grammar fail.

Plus, from the comments: “Mankiw’s observation about incentives is simply a fact. Kinsley’s dismissals of the facts are liberals’ stock in trade.”

M. SIMON: “The people who brought you the Internet Revolution seem poised to bring you the TEA Party Revolution. Oh. Yeah. We have better music too. Suck it up.”

STAFF FORCED TO UNDERGO HANDWRITING ANALYSIS over bathroom graffiti. Good grief.

PROF. JACOBSON: Day 5 Of NY Times Cone of Silence On Maurice Hinchey Assault.

FREE MARKETS VS. COMMUNISM: In Chile, 33 miners rescued; in China, 37 dead.

GADSDEN FLAG VERBOTEN: A Texas woman was denied the right to vote on Monday because she was wearing a button bearing a Gadsden flag — the rattlesnake under the words “Don’t Tread on Me” that has become the unofficial image of the Tea Party. Katrina Pierson responds: “It’s not electioneering, it’s not a candidate, it’s not a party affiliation.”

MEDICAL JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIA: A food “lifeboat”: food and nutrition considerations in the event of a pandemic or other catastrophe. That photo really doesn’t look like enough food to me.

CATCH DRILLING DUST with a folded Post-It. Is there anything they can’t do?

AMID TALK OF A THIRD-PARTY CHALLENGE, a reader suggests I mention The Precinct Project.

DESPERATION? Barney Frank lent campaign $200,000 in third quarter. “As much as I like Bielat, not until this very moment did I think this seat might really be in play. Frank isn’t a tremendously wealthy guy. What on earth are his internal polls showing him to make him cough up 200 grand?”

BILL QUICK ISN’T OPTIMISTIC. I mean, even less than usual . . . .

HMM: Poll Watchers Claim Harassment And Intimidation At Houston, Texas Voting Places.

UNTIL THE ELECTION: 13 DAYS AND A WAKE-UP.

Plus, lots of on-the-ground election coverage from Da Tech Guy.

CHANGE: “Up in Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District (northern Minnesota, including the Iron Range and Duluth), 18-term incumbent Democratic porkmeister Jim Oberstar is in the race of his life against Republican challenger Chip Cravaack. The Eighth Congressional District is Democratic territory. No Republican challenger has previously come within shouting distance of Oberstar; he has never won less than 59 percent of the vote.”