Earlier this year I asked in a letter if schools still teach civics, how our country really works at all levels.
I apologize if it seemed like I was singling out the current generation for lacking knowledge of the U.S. Constitution because I have learned how wrong I was.
At a recent weekend campaign event, Dick Gephardt said “When I’m president, we’ll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day.”
This man has been in the House of Representatives since 1976, rising through the ranks to become majority leader in 1989, and is one of the herd of Democratic candidates for president next year. And yet, after all his education and experience, he doesn’t understand that a Supreme Court ruling can only be overturned by the court itself or by an amendment to the Constitution.
Dick, it’s an election, not a coronation.
Again, please accept my apologies, including the young person who responded to my earlier letter to let me know that his class was studying “the current government.”
Our government has been current, with remarkably few changes, for over two centuries, making it the most stable form the planet has seen since the Roman empire. And it is a government of laws, not of men.
Dick should be trying to become President Gephardt, not Richard the First.
Mike LeBlanc, East Wilton
Send questions/comments to the editors.
