Constitutionally Speaking

Tea Bagger Freshman Senator Mike Lee is no stranger to telling people that just about everything the Federal Government does is "unconstitutional". His latest rant about what he believes our "Founding Document" really means has to do with relief given to states after a natural disaster:

....an issue with flood and disaster relief--should that be a federal prerogative or is that a state power? I think a compelling point can be made that that's one thing that states historically have focused on...and I think that's one area where we ought to focus--one of many areas where we ought to focus -- on getting that power back to the states, keeping that money in the states to begin with.

Living in Western Kentucky - one of the areas hardest hit by a monolithic snow/ice storm 2 years ago - I can attest that the state wasn't at all powerless in getting aid to people, and the Federal response, while lauded by Gov. Beshear, was widely panned by conservative commentators as "not being enough".

Lee's continual assertions that things are "unconstitutional" only serves one purpose, to make his base operate under the assumption that he has not only a working knowledge of what The Constitution does and doesn't allow, but that he doesn't have to prove it because he's invoking the perception of The Constitution - and that's a BIG piece of iconography that the modern American Right doesn't want to question.