Experts on the founding fathers

On Sunday the NYT ran a piece commenting on the potential of a primary challenge to six-term Senator Dick Lugar:

Even after the midterm rout that will remove many long-serving members from Congress, the idea that Mr. Lugar would be vulnerable to a primary challenge is a chilling notion to many Republicans, a symbol of symbolism gone too far.

“If Dick Lugar,” said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, “having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.”

Predictably, this produced chaotic bursts of pant-shitting from Teabaggers around the internet, including Putz and the rocket scientists at Hot Air, who note:

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: Since when is Dick Lugar the canary in the coal mine for Republicanism? I’m not a Lugar hater by any stretch; he’s a six-term Senator and has done some good work on Capitol Hill for the GOP. However, Republicans around the country have made clear that they want ObamaCare challenged by every legal means at hand — and a large number of independents feel the same way. If Lugar doesn’t represent the will of the electorate, then he doesn’t belong in office.

Ol' Shit-for-Brains: SO DOES JOHN DANFORTH THINK THAT RICHARD LUGAR IS SOMEHOW ABOVE THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS? I’d say that if the GOP has started issuing seats like titles of nobility, without caring what the voters think, then that’s beyond redemption. Nobody should be immune to a primary challenge.

Boy, for people who can't order pancakes without quoting the Founders they sure don't have a very good grasp on how Madison and Jefferson and the boys felt about the nature of democratic representation in their small-r republican system. Even if alleged law professor Glenn Reynolds has never heard of Edmund Burke or the idea of a republic founded on representing "your interests, not your will", there is very little doubt that the people who wrote the Constitution were quite keen on the idea.

But in the imaginations of Teabaggers, what the Founders really wanted was a government that served as a direct conduit for public opinion. That's why, you know, neither the Courts, the Senate, or the President are popularly elected in the original document.

(PS: Note Putz's attempt to look smart and appear as though he understands what is in the Constitution by swiping the phrase "Titles of Nobility" from Art. I, Sec. 9. Way to google, Putzy!)