We the purple

Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is none too happy about the sparkly new Capitol Visitor Center, according to this McClatchy article. Though Congress mandated $621 for the new center, which one critic has dubbed “a false and slick pomposity,” they managed to get the nation’s motto wrong. Money quote: “After taking a tour of […]

Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is none too happy about the sparkly new Capitol Visitor Center, according to this McClatchy article. Though Congress mandated $621 for the new center, which one critic has dubbed “a false and slick pomposity,” they managed to get the nation’s motto wrong.

Money quote: “After taking a tour of the visitor center in September with Steven Ayers, the architect of the Capitol who oversaw its completion, DeMint correctly noted that it had erroneously described `E. Pluribus Unum’-Latin for `from many, one’-as the national motto rather than `In God We Trust.'”

DeMint threatened to delay yesterday’s opening of the new visitor’s center until they changed the motto. And he still ain’t happy, saying the center misrepresents American history by downplaying the faith of the Founding Fathers and other prominent figures.


“The current Capitol Visitor Center displays are left-leaning and in some cases distort our true history,” DeMint said. The center’s “most prominent display proclaims faith not in God, but in government.”

DeMint’s most upset about an inscription from a 19th century Congressman from (yep, you guessed it: Massachusetts) that says: “We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.”

The South Carolina senator argues with the dead Congressman, calling his words a “misrepresentation of our history.”

I read it as the Establishment Clause in granite.

(Photo courtesy of the CVC)

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