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CounterPunch
February
22, 2003
Fact-Checking the Constitution
A Bill of Apology
By BEN TRIPP
An alert reader recently took issue with my
characterization of the Electoral College as not being mentioned
anywhere in the Constitution; she notes that it bloody well
is, or words to that effect. I know this perfectly well, and
was mystified by my own assertion in the piece in question--but
I have discovered the error, and will weasel my way around the
damning accusation in a moment, as soon as I've said a few self-indulgent
words about the process by which I develop my stories. I'm sure
this will fascinate everyone, and afterwards I will deliver an
even more interesting lecture on the metabolism of the red-spotted
eft.
One of the most common questions people
ask me is "Where do you get your ideas?" (The very
most common question is "How can you live with yourself?"
which is a silly question, because who else can I live with?
I'm attached to me like Siamese twins. It's a nightmare.)
My ideas come from the world around me, of course. I'll see
a student thesis on Iraqi weapons programs, for example, and
it gets me to thinking. I'll come up with a unique perspective
on the issue, copy large passages from the student essay, add
an introductory paragraph, and pass it off as an entirely original
work by the British intelligence service. Next thing you know,
Colin Powell is reading it to the UN. Other times, I'll take
one of my ill-informed paranoid speculations and gin up a gossamer
framework of half-truths and augury to support the thesis (this
is known among journalists as 'The Bill O'Reilly Maneuver').
But however I arrive at the premise for an article, the hard
work begins when it's time to build the arguments within it.
People rely upon the media for their facts, and this is especially
important in the arena of political journalism, where facts lie
as thin on the ground as spotted owls. I may be a satirist,
but I take facts very seriously indeed. Often.
As America's most respected journalist,
it is incumbent upon me to be as accurate as possible in my writings,
and to check and recheck every statement in the essays to ensure
they are both accurate and informative. Otherwise global chaos
could result, as many world leaders except in the United States
base their policy decisions upon my recommendations. For this
reason, I employ fact checkers. Fact checkers are very small
folk with dense fur on their backs and broad webbed feet. Their
job is to examine my writings for statements that can be proven
or disproven as fact, and to separate these factual statements
from other categories of remark such as 'cheap laughs', 'idle
surmise', and 'inflammatory lies'. These categories make up
the bulk of my pieces, and so the fact checkers for the most
part spend their days roaming the grounds and swimming in the
moat, where they are occasionally eaten by the enormous gar that
lurks under the drawbridge.
Once the fact checkers are done 'scrubbing'
my pieces, which means making them less amusing by insisting
upon accuracy, the remaining material is sent to the lawyers.
The lawyers inhabit the north tower during the days, although
as soon as the sun is low they bolt like rabbits back to the
village, partly because I'm too cheap to pay for candles, and
partly because the forest is crawling with giant wolves. I think
they're wolves; they could be enormous mutant coatimundi or something
but that's exactly the kind of speculation that panics people,
as one of my fact checkers just pointed out. So let's say wolves.
The lawyers examine my work to ensure that I've said nothing
libelous or actionable against any person or institution, and
that any opinions I state in the course of a piece do not suggest
themselves as anything other than my own judgment. This process
generally takes my pieces from around 5,500 words to anywhere
from1,400 words to three sentences.
But the journey from idea to published
piece is still not finished. Because once the relays of functionaries
and menials have gone over each article with a fine-toothed rake,
I am ready to work up the final draft. I return to the escritoire
with quill in hand and slash mercilessly at the manuscript, stripping
out excess verbiage, honing each phrase until it gleams (this
is best accomplished with a few passes over a buffing wheel primed
with bobber's compound and then fine hand-polishing with French
Dialux Green jeweler's rouge). This is the hardest part: is
every joke a boffo, a sockaroo? Have I extracted every yock?
Which is le mot juste, 'verbosity' or 'prolixity'? Is
there a single point which has not been made, a single insight
undelivered? I will slave over this stage of the writing for
upwards of two or three minutes, rebuffing all offers of refreshment
or entreaties to come to bed, until perfection is achieved or
I get bored. Only then is the gilt-edged document engrossed
on finest cream-laid archival linen (inked by monastic scribes
whose calligraphy is descended from the hand that illuminated
the Book of Kells), then quarto bound in limp calfskin and delivered
to the publisher.
Which is why, when said reader noted
that the Electoral College is in fact mentioned in the Constitution,
in direct contradistinction to my own proposal, I felt the sting.
You can imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth around here;
it sounded like a cut-rate dentist's office during an earthquake.
Scores of fact-checkers felt the sting of my Panang lawyer,
with which I laid about me in a frenzy of rage. Then one of
the conventional lawyers suggested I parse my words. Maybe the
correspondent was wrong. "Nay," I cried, bull-necked
with fury. Because it came to light that during the research
phase of developing the essay, which I forgot to mention but
is terribly dull with a lot of me wandering around the stacks
of the estate library with its million-odd volumes, humming tunelessly
(me, not the books; the books mutter in damp weather, but never
hum), I pulled down the wrong copy of the Constitution!
I now note that the version I was looking at is marked 'DRAFT',
and came from the personal library of Thomas Jefferson, including
some amusing doodles in the margins that should have alerted
me to its status. An original source document, certainly; I
never use anything else. But the wrong one. Not only does this
early draft's preamble begin "Us the Persons of the United
States", it also says "no monkey business" in
Article VI, clause 3, which was amended to "no religious
Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office
or public Trust under the United States." The Framers were
a pretty sharp bunch.
However, I did dig up the final version
of the Constitution, which was misfiled among my signed first
editions of Paine's 'Common Sense'. I used it as a bookmark,
like a fool. But that's of no matter now. Upon perusing the
hallowed document, I discovered the germane passages. It seems
the Framers, who in those days used hardwood and square nails,
which is why the framing is so sturdy, couldn't figure out how
to deny the common man the opportunity to vote for the highest
office in the land. So they settled upon the Electoral College
at the instigation of one James Wilson, who was a Scotsman and
had hardly gotten off the boat at the time, so what the hell
did he know? But there it is. The manner in which the electoral
college operates was revised in Amendment XII, and it is this
revision which we operate under today. This established, I returned
to my original notes for the piece in question, which boldly
asserts that the Electoral College is "a peculiar system
and isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution." And
then I understood. What we have here is not a bizarre factual
error, but an editing error. It's still an error, and it will
haunt me to the end of my days, or the end of today, at the very
least. But let it be understood: the term 'Electoral
College', not the institution itself, which is a well-established
mechanism accepted by all Constitutional authorities including
the ones on my payroll, is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.
So the text in question should have read "a peculiar term
and isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution", not "a
peculiar system and isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution".
There's even a subsequent gag that falls completely flat without
the amended text, for which I also apologize.
I hope this clears up the Constitutional
crisis I unwittingly precipitated by this textual gaffe, and
I wish to assure the readers that other than this trifling lapse,
absolutely every single word of all of my earlier pieces, and
God willing all of my future work, if any, is virtually one hundred
percent reliable. No guarantees, however, as I'm a little low
on fact checkers right now--they've fled into the forest to escape
my wrath, and there was an awful lot of howling out there last
night.
Ben Tripp
is a screenwriter and political cartoonist. He can be reached
at: credel@earthlink.net
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February 15
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