Like a lot of you, I don't quite get what folks in Congress thought they were achieving this morning with their selective and abridged read-aloud of the Constitution. Sounded to me a little like the kick-off of a new sales pitch. They're going to go right on doing whatever they want but now they'll make an extra effort to pretend that it was exactly what Thomas Jefferson wanted…and therefore to oppose them is to go against ol' Tom and the rest of the Founding Fathers.
This has generally been the strategy of those who call themselves Strict Constructionalists: They figure out ways to argue that John Adams didn't want John Quincy Adams to have to pay taxes on any inheritance. A lot of these same folks work the same scam with The Bible, only they pretend there that their prejudices and selfish agendas are those of God and therefore inarguable. Would that they respected those sacred writings enough to not wrap themselves in them.