On this Independence Day, I turn the full attention of my ire towards the self-styled authorities sprawled all over the television casting dispersions on those men who founded the nation 230 years ago. I heard the third so-called expert deride Jefferson at 9:30 this morning and stopped counting. The quote of the day was: Yes, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but more importantly, he owned slaves. Really??? He was a Virginia planter. Is his being a slave owner a surprise for anyone? So was Washington. So was Madison. Should we rescind our independence because Continental forces were commanded by a slave owner? Should we take back the Constitution because its primary author was a slave holder, too?

As it is said, the founding fathers were men of singular genius who designed a government that could be run by idiots. Do any of us really think that brain trust of a Congress we have now could hope to devise something so enduring or elegant? They were great men struggling in a glorious cause. Like great men though history, some had equally great flaws. There flaws were part and parcel of what it meant to be the psudo-aristocracy of revolutionary America. Their achievement, however, transcends time and place and defines what it means to be American.

Today, we honor their wisdom and their memory.