Most people here and those I have talked to concider her to be unqualified at best and a laughing stock at worst but this was way beyond the whole "I'm not a witch" thing. Here she blatantly shows not only how much she misunderstands the Constitution but how insanley fundemental she is in her religious thought process. It's one thing to disagree with the seperation of church and state laws our Constitution sets or even read them differenlty than others but to not even know it's in there?

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She is probably not as learned on the Constitution as she should be, but she's not as dumb as you're trying to make her out to be. The phrase "seperation of church and state" is NOT in the 1st Amendment. Thomas Jefferson used the phrase in 1802, well after the Constitution was written.

The standard of seperation of church and state has been under a constant state of flux, since so many people have a different opinion on how far that standard should reach. The founding fathers did not want a gov't sponsored religion or to restrict the exercise of any particular faith, but since then all kinds of convoluted scenarios and legal questions have come along. The 1st Amendment certainly did not clearly distinguish these more recent issues.

It doesn't matter that the actual words do not appear in the First Amendment. The entire concept stems directly from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It is by no means some esoteric idea that only deep Constitutional scholars ponder.

If you're going to be a United State Senator, you should probably know at least where the idea comes from, even if you disagree with it.

Well she probably doesn't/didn't know much about the Establishment Clause, but she didn't clarify what the point of her question was either. I would venture to say that quite a few members of congress don't know much about the Constitution outside of their preconceived politically biased notions. I'd prefer to make a mockery of all of them rather than just one that's on the other side of someone's political compass.

There is a huge difference between squabbling over the wording of the First Amendment and it's meaning and simply not knowing that the First Amendment sets forth certain rules regardinng government and religion. This was not her dissagreeing or taking a conservative stance on seperation of church and state. This was her honestly not knowing where the ideas and laws stem from. So....yup, she is a pretty dim bulb in my opinion.

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I understand where you're coming from and I agree that a lot of our officials fall short in their knowledge of the Constitution but we're talking about a huge, well known topic here, not some abscure fine print. When the audience actually laughs at your response, that is a sign that they know more than you do on the topic and you just stuck your foot in your mouth without knowing it. For the everday joe....no biggie. For someone running for Senate....scary.

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well, she did state afterwards that she was referring to that actual phrase not being found in the first amendment. IF that is true, it's not a gambit i'd make, ESPECIALLY not in front of a bunch of law school students. ESPECIALLY if i'm not going to clarify myself immediately.

But I share the opinion of the OP...she seems (from my view from the left) to be another 'pretty' face hitting keywords the far right want to hear, so...palin 2.0

She deserves to be mocked for many reasons that don't come close to her political viewpoints.

Yeah...I'm not going to bother looking up the whole video, but I'm going out on a limb and assume that she did not follow up her question with any intelligent follow-up commentary.

Exactly. Assuming she meant that (which I don't buy for a second), you immediately follow it up with that exact point so you DON'T look like a toolbox. Even if she did mean that, she is ignoring 200 years of legal rulings clarifying and defining that separation.

Palin 2.0 is right. She has said that she has Hannity 'in her back pocket' if she needs airtime to fund raise. She refuses to do interviews with or talk to any unfriendly media outlets. She has lied and embellished her education credentials, and has been proven to be running for Congress repeatedly for income.

....and she thinks scientists have succesfully bred mice/human hybrids resulting in "mice with fully functioning human brains"

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Dude, you MUST be kidding...hahaha, PLEASE give me a link so I can literally laugh out loud. I've not heard this from her before, awesome.

Wait..............so there are mice that are as smart as people?

In addition, she's said that she has 'secret information' about a Chinese plot to take over America.

Go to 4:10...then laugh

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From Yahoo..."Later in the debate, O'Donnell challenged Coons to name the five freedoms of the First Amendment. He came up four freedoms short."

Hmmm, where's the video vilification of Coons for this snafu? Not from you, DP, but from the media in general. Like I said before, I'd prefer across the board mockery. Follow that with tar and feathering, and then maybe some burning at the stake.

A 40 year old single woman who believes masturbation is evil.
Something aint right with her...I mean clinically.

I'd say I was surprised those fucktards in Delaware picked her over someone who was sane and could actually win the election, but these are the same people that sent Joe Biden to DC for 37 years.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

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Anderson Cooper pretty much shredded her credibility over all this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/2 ... 69836.html

Coons does not hold himself out to be a Constitutional expert. O'Donnell does.

If I were to apply for a job with a lanscaping company and tell them that my experience with my family's lanscaping company more than qualifies me for the job...then not know, oh let's say....that palm trees don't do well in Northern Canada.....I'd sound pretty dumb too. Not to mention that the experience I was speaking of actually was a few days in the summer with my cousin's landscaping buisiness which I did for extra drinking money.

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