Imprecision in the defense of liberty is very much a vice -- Huckabee's mistaken characterization of the Constitution as "living and breathing"

On CNN , Governor Mike Huckabee opined that the Constitution of the United States is a "living and breathing" document in need of amendment.

This man is confused.

To his credit, Huckabee seemed to be defending human life and traditional marriage, but in making his rhetorical finish, Huckabee – without so much of an Arkansas blink of the eye – then proclaimed the Constitution to be a "living and breathing" document. Say what?

I suppose it's possible to chalk up this confusion to the stress and strains of the campaign or perhaps the early morning hour in which the interview took place, but the confusion may well point up a greater suspicion about the Huckabee candidacy that many have -- namely, that his commitment to conservative principle is not well formed, and it is decidedly too loose in places where certainty and fidelity is required.

All of us enjoy a good joke, and Governor Huckabee seems to enjoy telling them, but the erosion of constitutional liberty represented by the agenda that lies behind the terminology "living and breathing" when applied to constitutional adjudication is no laughing matter.

Governor Huckabee's confusion over constitutional basics is especially troubling because it suggests that he lacks a clear understanding of the type of jurist a conservative Republican president necessarily must be prepared to appoint and defend -- namely, one who respects the text, history, and context of the words of the Constitution. No respectable adherent of the Constitution's original understanding would describe that important charter as "living and breathing." It is a contradiction in terms. Instead of seeing the Constitution as a law backed by force like every other law, and therefore in need of fair, but not inventive, interpretation in light of its words as originally understood, would a President Huckabee judge be devoted to penumbral, pliable and evolutionary rulings?

Perhaps Governor Huckabee has been hanging around with too many Democrats talking about "change." Change can be good when it is the will of the people as expressed through democratic means, but change is unwarranted in private or public setting when it is imposed by an unelected judge without textual authority. Who of us would privately contract with another person if our carefully negotiated agreement could be easily set aside with the argument that the words used in the contract were "living and breathing" and subject to change? Who of us would want our public social contract, at a time when individual liberty is challenged in the face of national security threat, to be equally uncertain?

A failure to keep this straight not only suggests Huckabee's possible philosophical weakness in the appointment of judges, but also that he might not be sufficiently sensitive to see such philosophical looseness for what it is -- an endangerment of individual right. In the words of Justice Scalia, "one would suppose that the rule that a text does not change would (especially) apply to the Constitution. If courts felt too much bound by the democratic process to tinker with statutes, when they're tinkering could be adjusted by the legislature, how much more should they feel bound not to tinker with the Constitution, when they're tinkering is virtually irreparable. It certainly cannot be said that a constitution naturally suggests changeability; to the contrary its whole purpose is to prevent change -- to embed certain rights in such a manner that future generations cannot readily take them away. A society that adopts a bill of rights is skeptical that its evolving standards of decency always mark progress and that society's always mature as opposed to rot . . . ."

Ultimately the problem with a living Constitution is that it eviscerates the very guarantees of individual liberty that we depend upon. While it might be thought that a "living and breathing" Constitution always favors liberty, there is no guarantee of that. As Justice Scalia again writes, "just the opposite is true. Historically, and particularly in the past 35 years, the 'evolving' Constitution has imposed a vast array of new constraints -- new inflexibilities -- upon [the choices of the people]. " Justice Scalia mentions, for example, a few things that formerly could be done or not done, as a society desired, but now cannot be done at all because judges accepted the notion casually indulged by Governor Huckabee that the Constitution is a "living and breathing" document. Among the lost liberties that have been sacrificed to this living and breathing misconception are: "permitting invocation of God at public school graduations, terminating welfare payments as soon as evidence of fraud is found, subject to restoration if after a hearing the evidence of fraud is satisfactorily refuted, and prohibiting pornography."

Presumably, Governor Huckabee would not be pleased to know that the terminology that he so unthinkingly employs undermines the freedom of religion, sensible administrative policies to prevent waste, and the exclusion of denigrating pornographic material, but as Justice Scalia's remarks illustrate, the one flows from the other. It's an old story: ideas have consequences and since ideas require their careful delineation in words, we need a president that can choose his words carefully. Describing the Constitution as a "living and breathing" document is the opposite.

That Governor Huckabee may not wish the consequences of his imprecision does not mean that the costs of them would not be borne by his fellow citizens.

Early results show Romney Winning Big in Michigan

The early exit polls show Mitt Romney winning the Michigan primary handily over John McCain and Mike Huckabee.  While still too early to call him the front-runner, it is a major victory for Romney and many Republicans who were at a loss to know who they could support had Romney faltered.

Romney ran an inspired race to a victorious finish in Michigan and now needs a credible showing in South Carolina to gain momentum.  

On the Democratic side, Hillary and Obama have let their rhetorical guards down and it isn't pretty.  In the first few primaries, America was fooled into believing that Obama was about hope that transcended race and division and that Hillary represented experience without paying any attention to gender. We now see in the clinch these commitments to transcendant values to be less than true of both Democrats.  Even worse for both Senators, at this point, it is unclear whether the race and gender bell can be unrung.

Michigan is a godsend for the Republicans. The Democrats are pouting apparently willing to write off an economically-hurting state out of inconsequential partisan pique.  If the Democrats were really serious about doing anything for the economy, let alone addressing their marquee issues of health care and the war, would they really be on the sidelines over the trivial issue of which state can cast an early primary ballot?  And does anyone really think civil rights would have been protected without both the inspirational eloquence of Martin Luther King and the political ingenuity of LBJ? And who really cares about Obama’s drug use as a teenager?  Do we really have to go through years of this "I didn’t inhale" nonsense again?

There’s been a lot of media blather in the last few weeks on how united the Democrats are and how the GOP is in disarray. Surprise, it is just the reverse.  The Republicans are going about the serious business of picking a serious person for an important office. And it’s a good thing. Michigan is beginning to have an awful lot of uncomfortable company in its "single state recession."

Perhaps the Democrats haven’t noticed that while they have been bickering over which of their two self-anointed messiahs have paid politically correct homage to the past, the Republican candidates have been grappling with the hard realities of the present. 

Today Romney pulled out of a statistical dead heat with John McCain according to the polls.  But in truth this was misleading, because unlike New Hampshire where McCain could draw on a heavy turn-out of independents or Democrats gaming the system,  Michigan voters came to the polls with less ambivalence than met the eye. Having spent a portion of my life in Michigan on a small farm in Bertrand Township, I can tell you that there’s nothing uncertain in the Wolverine mind about what is important, and it has little to do with calculated appeals to race or gender.  What matters in Michigan is not the color of your skin or the happenstance of your given nature from the Creator, but family, patriotism, faith, and a willingness to do a lot of hard work. It’s a place where in the cities, small and large, the sight of children playing in the shadow of long vacant Studebaker factory or GM plant is not a sign of despair but of defiance where one still finds childhood joy unconquered by an aging layoff.  Mr. Romney’s father’s company maybe long gone, but in Michigan, "buy American" is not a slogan of mocking impossibility. Somehow from Traverse City to St. Joseph to Battle Creek to Niles, the American dream sustains itself like the winter wheat renewing an idle pasture.

So go ahead Hillary and Obama waste your time debating who was the first to play the race or the gender card. Go ahead Democratic Party don’t bother to pay any attention to those for whom reducing consumer spending means not just forgoing a designer label, but an evening meal. In the adult party today, the GOP will be doing something different.

We will be choosing someone who offers more substance than rhetoric, whose idea of leadership does not bring oneself or others to tears, and even within our own ranks, is not likely to be either a nice-enough, guitar playing quipster who you wouldn’t mind as a neighbor or someone so cocky as to predict a continued occupancy of Iraq for another hundred years on Meet the Press without taking any account of the blood and treasure that would waste or the harm that would do to America’s military and international standing. No, Obama and Hillary are eliminating themselves, and the cold brace of Michigan’s winter air is also supplying the clarity needed for voters to forgo Hucking it all upon warmed over Democratic spending nostrums or casting a vote for a candidate whose idea of "straight talk" is closer to a message of resignation and despair. 

Michigan’s native son may have wandered East and West, and this may be a source of humor for sneering media pundits like Chris Matthews who think they can shrink a servant leader down to their own diminutive cable-channel size with snide commentary about a candidate’s earned wealth, or his willingness to rethink the tired and shopworn answers of the past and thus change his mind, or even to seek opportunity away from his place of birth. The growing crowds around Mitt know better.  My former neighbors in Michigan may be down on their luck, but they will welcome home a native son who found success in those eastern seaboard financial markets – places that reward the kind of genuine know-how that is capable for fighting for every job even if it means making modern day Ramblers run-on corn or electricity or hydrogen or some combination of elements yet un-invented.  And Michigan is not so insular that it will discount the achievement of what it means to sustain an international forum that allows the world to compete without hatred. 

Yes, Mitt Romney won in Michigan today. Having returned home, this smart, business turnaround candidate has demonstrated he will no longer take second place for himself or his country.