Did Christine O'Donnell Really Know the Bill of Rights?

Mark Silk, whose institute at Trinity College does a lot of fine work analyzing how religion is treated in the media, has a smart blog post about Christine O’Donnell’s ignorance of the establishment clause. Among other things, he takes on Candace Chellew-Hodges, who argues in her post at Religion Dispatches that the Delaware Republican knew exactly what she was doing, and was intentionally winking at her conservative base. Key quotations from Silk:

Over at Religion Dispatches, Candace Chellew-Hodge contends that Christine O'Donnell knew exactly what she was about during her close encounter with the First Amendment at Widener University Law School the other day: Sure, the smarty-pants in the audience might have been shocked at O'Donnell's denial that the Constitution provides for separation of church and state, but what she was really doing was giving one of those out-of-human-hearing dog whistles to her conservative base, which has long since embraced the no-separation-in-the-Constitution meme advanced by revisionist amateur historian David Barton.

If so, it was pretty stupid on O'Donnell's part. At this point in her senatorial campaign, what she needs to do is not rally the base but reassure ordinary Delaware voters that she's not a nutcase. Suggesting that the U.S. of A. does not separate church and state was ill calculated to achieve such reassurance.

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Oppenheimer and Silk will appear on the Colin McEnroe Show Monday to discuss religion in politics in the 20010 campaign.