When presidential candidate Ben Carson boasted Thomas Jefferson helped shape the U.S. Constitution, left-leaning news agencies pounced on him like peasants in the former communist Soviet Union would pounce on the last available loaf of bread in the bread line.
“But I’m particularly impressed with Thomas Jefferson, who seemed to have very deep insight into the way that people would react and tried to craft our Constitution in a way that it would control people’s national tendencies and control the natural growth of the government,” were the words uttered by Carson that sent the desperate legions of liberal bloggers and journalists into a frenzy.
Thomas Jefferson helped draft the constitution? What an unthinkable notion. Something must be done to correct this blatant revisionist attack on American history.
USA Today’s David Jackson, without fact checking, stated, “Jefferson, however, did not participate in the development of the U.S. Constitution during a 1787 convention. As Carson himself pointed out in his book A More Perfect Union, Jefferson was serving as U.S. minister to France at that time.”
That neutral political outlet Politico followed suit, claiming, “Carson says, wrongly, that Thomas Jefferson crafted the Constitution”.
In a gem of misinformation penned by Politico’s Nolan D. McCaskill, “Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.”
At Newsweek, a once well-trusted source, Jack Martinez jumped on the ill-informed bandwagon.
“It’s a bit of a trick question, because there isn’t a sole author. That fact appeared to be lost on Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson when he said during a recent interview that Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence,” Martinez wrote. Carson didn’t say Jefferson was author of the Declaration of Independence, but let’s not let any facts get in the way of a good viral “gotchya” story during an election, especially if it’s against a Republican.
The list goes on and on. Hanry Gaas, Christian Science Monitor; Noah Feldman, Bloomberg; Chad Merda, Chicago Sun Times; and many others dropped the ball on the story.
Only one however as of this morning had the integrity to admit they were wrong. David Mastio of Gannett’s USA Today got the story right in his story, “Oops! Carson’s not actually wrong about Jefferson”.
“…here’s an interesting historical footnote to the Constitutional Convention. At the time, an early version of email was available. It was the social media of its day, called letters. Important people, say, the U.S. minister in France, could give pieces of paper to ship captains who’d take them by boat all the way to Philadelphia,” Mastio wrote.
Even the ACLU, the liberal bastion of idiocracy agrees the media had it all wrong.
Jefferson while he never “wrote” the Declaration of Independence did play a significant role in its creation (crafting).
According to the ACLU’s take on the whole affair, Jefferson lobbied those who did the actual “writing” to include the Bill of Rights, a cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence.
“So, the Constitution’s framers heeded Thomas Jefferson who argued: A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference,” the story went.
None of this matters, they’ve all moved on to their next meal, like seagulls to a french fry.