Yes, Rep. Bachmann, the Framers compromised

Andrew Sullivan has some smart readers. Here's one commenting on Michele Bachmann and the misguided notion of Originalism: "This is more about the Founders and the notion of them as some hive-minded group of supermen. The real problem that Originalists have is that even in 1789, the Constitution was a series of compromises. ... Originalists have to overlook the fact that Jefferson vehemently opposed the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. They have to overlook that Madison's views changed. They have to overlook that in order to get the Constitution out of the Convention, the abolitionists (and there were some, Franklin and Hamilton among them) had to agree that the issue of the trans-Atlantic slave trade couldn't be touched for twenty some years." This reminds me of a line in the movie Elmer Gantry: "Tell me," a newspaperman asks Gantry (Burt Lancaster), "how is it some people can only find hate in the Bible?" Folks like Bachmann treat history in a like manner. They see only what they wish to see.