The Constitution doesn’t say you can’t do it
In a post tagged as “America’s Biggest Asshole,” Wonkette goes a little bit crazy denouncing Ron Paul, the sole Representative who failed to back a “harmless” House Resolution “[e]xpressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes.”
Wonkette asks what might be the single most disingenuous question one could ask about the Constitution: “[W]here exactly in your pocket Constitution does it say the United States can’t give cost-free moral support to democratic movements?” The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t say this. And it doesn’t have to. The Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government, which implies that actions not based on those powers are prohibited. Is it harmless to support “cost-free moral support”? Probably. Do Congress’s enumerated powers contain the power to pass harmless measures? No.
And if I may digress… Who gets to decide what is harmless, anyway? I’m pretty sure it’s not gossipy bloggers.
I’m probably just being a snotty law student who just finished taking Constitutional Law. But at least I didn’t call Wonkette a Senile Fucktard.