Most Unconstitutional

In trying to explain California’s celebration of the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, bicentennial official Peter Paul said, “We’re trying to make the Constitution user-friendly . . . . We’re using the same people who sell soap to sell understanding of the Constitution.” Listening to Paul, you can see how he arrived at that strategy. It’s pretty clear that he thinks of the average Californian as one of the great unwashed.

The commission got off to a bad start this year when it decided to sell a book called “The Making of America.” The book became an immediate source of controversy for its use of racially insulting terms like “pickaninnies.” Under pressure from Democratic legislators, that part of the project was dropped.

But any celebration with a Disney-designed mascot can’t fail, right? We’ll see. The California bicentennial has Bison tennial Ben, a grinning little critter who is a combination American bison and Benjamin Franklin. The caricatures include one of Ben in a spacesuit holding an American flag, presumably standing on the moon. Paul said: “If you had a reenactment of 39 sweaty old men arguing in Philadelphia, how many of our children would be interested? But put them in space suits and the kids will really go for it.”

Perhaps Paul should have gotten someone who would sell the Constitution like deodorant instead of soap.

Glitzy items like Bison tennial Ben, celebrities and a movie that puts the Founding Fathers in space are necessary to get Californians interested in the Constitution, Paul said. While the group will distribute copies of the complete Constitution, it also will give out folders containing a summary of the Constitution combined with a market-research survey and a sweepstakes entry blank. “Who’s going to read a lot of 18th-Century English?” Paul asked. The summary is for those who will not apply themselves intellectually, he explained.

The California celebration will include some educational programs and a grand constitutional signing at the Independence Hall replica at Knott’s Berry Farm on Sept. 17--followed by a black-tie banquet for the governor, with tickets selling at $200 and $500 each.

The closest that most Californians will get to the state’s official celebration, however, will be to receive in the mail a tract of musty 18th-Century English written by 39 sweaty old men in Philadelphia. Those who are not as spaced out and laid back as Paul thinks they are will read it and rediscover, through the remarkable clarity of the Constitution’s words, what the miracle of Philadelphia was all about. Then some of them might indulge in the ultimate act of generosity: trying to explain it to Paul.