The series of Buzzword articles at Slate continues tonight, with those of Al Sharpton. Read it here.

Constitutional Right
Example: "If Charlton Heston can have a constitutional right to carry a rifle, why can't grandma have a constitutional right to health care—and therefore the pharmaceutical industry, and for that matter the medical services industry, have to be governed by a constitutional commitment to give Americans those rights?" (NPR's Morning Edition, June 13, 2003).
What it means: To guarantee entitlements, we must write them into the Constitution.
What it hides: The government doesn't pay for Heston's rifle.
Subtext: If the furnace is busted, we lefties might as well go crazy with the thermostat.

Sharpton was on CBS' Face The Nation yesterday. For those who missed it, or those who simply want to relive it, here's the full transcript. A key segment:

BALZ: Reverend Sharpton, you have repeatedly refused to apologize for your involvement in the Tawana Brawley case in the late 1980s. I'd like to ask you a question today. What did you learn from that experience, and how are you different today from the Al Sharpton who was involved in that episode?

SHARPTON: What I learned is that if you stand for something that you believe in -- and I've stood in the last 17 years, 16 years since then (unintelligible) -- you're going to get criticized. You're going to get hit. But if you believe in it, and you stand your ground, but you make sure that you're careful to expose the people and raise the people -- the bigger issues and not just get caught up in the rhetoric of the moment. I stand by what I believe. I just learned how to put what I believe forward more than the rhetoric around what I believe.

SCHIEFFER: But, Reverend...

SHARPTON: And I think that's what I've learned.

SCHIEFFER: Well, Reverend Sharpton, you were wrong, though. I mean, a jury found that the charges...

SHARPTON: I do not believe I was -- a jury -- a jury...

SCHIEFFER: ...were not true and that you, in fact, had to pay money in a libel settlement because of that.

SHARPTON: Well, first of all, Bob, a jury said in the Central Park jogger case a year later that I was wrong, and it was just overturned 13 years later. Juries can be wrong. I stood by what I believed. Juries are proven wrong every day. That's why we have appeals courts and higher courts and then the Supreme Court. So just because a jury made a ruling at one point does not mean that I was wrong.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Civil rights activist and Democratic presidential hopeful Rev. Al Sharpton denounced President Bush for invading Iraq without international support and mocked him for failing to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden.

"They said they're going to war because of weapons of mass destruction. They can't find the weapons," Sharpton said during a campaign stop at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church. "Bush said after Sept. 11 we've got to go and get bin Laden. Yet he can't find bin Laden. He can't find bin Laden, he can't find the weapons. Now we've got to take pride that Saddam Hussein is still alive; we can't find him.

"I promise you if I'm elected, President Bush will not be in charge of the missing persons bureau," Sharpton shouted to cheers, laughter and applause.

From the Shreveport Times (LA):

Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton was in Shreveport on Wednesday night to raise funds for his 2004 presidential campaign.

The Rev. Artis Cash, pastor of Shreveport Christian Church, said the fund-raiser was in response to a promise he made when Sharpton visited the city June 3. "This is not a IMAC presentation. I promised the Sharpton camp that I would get people together for a fund-raiser, and I am keeping my word."

Here is the transcript of the PBS Newshour medical care interview with Sharpton.

The basic premise of the Sharpton presidential campaign, when it deals with health care, starts with the support of this amendment because, firstly, if we can make every American have the constitutional right to high-quality health care, then the programs that fund it starts on the basis that we guarantee Americans that right. For example, a couple of years ago, when veterans discovered that the administration was backing up on the longstanding but unwritten commitment that people that served in the armed forces would have lifetime health care, they couldn't argue from a legal premise because there was no constitutional right. There was no legal premise to fight from. I think that it is very important that we establish the legal premise and the programs emanate from that foundation.