The Chronicle‘s relatively new business columnist could not resist opining on American constitutionalism with his most recent effort:
Much of the outrage over the Hobby Lobby decision has rightfully focused on women’s rights, and the idea that a corporation’s religious freedom trumps a woman’s right to fair and equal treatment under the law is astonishing, but there are other insidious aspects to this case that we need to worry about.
Of course, said columnist can’t cite any part of the majority holding in the Hobby Lobby case that actually argues that a corporation’s religious freedom trumps the rights of women to fair and equal treatment under the law, because there is no such passage to be found in the (relatively narrow) decision.
So he just made up “facts” in order to write the sort of column he wanted to write, and misled readers as to the issues at stake in an important Supreme Court decision.
The newspaper’s leftist doodler Nick Anderson also got into the act, illustrating (pardon the pun) his lack of understanding of the facts and constitutional issue at stake — not that one should ever take this particular doodler all that seriously anyway.
These two Chron editorialists are hardly alone. Charles C.W. Cooke published a piece on National Review Online yesterday about the lack of understanding (nay, “mass incomprehension!”) of the Supreme Court’s constitutional role on display after the ruling. It’s well worth a click and read (although it is a bit depressing).
