The text is confusing

If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

Thomas Jefferson

A not too surprising result from a (non-scientific) Constitutional quiz posted on AOL shows a significant deficit in understanding basics of the Constitution. 

When the Republican House leadership decided to start the 112th Congress with a reading of the U.S. Constitution, the decision raised complaints in some quarters that it was little more than a political stunt. The New York Times even called it a "presumptuous and self-righteous act."

That might be true, if you could be sure that elected officials actually know something about the Constitution. But it turns out that many don't.

In fact, elected officials tend to know even less about key provisions of the Constitution than the general public.

The article and the text are here: Constitutional illiterates.  Click on the link to take the test yourself.

Maybe Ezra Klein thinks it’s too confusing, but should the rest of us?

The issue with the Constitution is not that people don’t read the text and think they’re following it. The issue with the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago.

Ezra Klein