Sounds like a postmodernist-style breakdown of Constitutional principles to me, which I don't happen to think is a very good idea.  The trouble I always had with the postmodernists is that they always seem to insist that there is no forest-- just a bunch of trees.  Having destroyed the notion of the forest(i.e. the original ideals of the Founding Fathers), they then re-interpret events according to their own political ideals, which are ultimately just as suspect to their deconstructionist arguments as the ones they just destroyed.

I, for one, happen to think the ideals shown in the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights are worthy causes, regardless of the circumstances of their creation.  Their creators may have been wealthy misogynist slaveowners, but the ideals they espoused would later be used to eliminate the institution of slavery and grant women the right to vote, among other things.  The fact that they were created for political reasons shouldn't detract from the value of the ideals themselves.(And even that fact is likely not as true as the author would like to believe-- at some level most of the founding fathers MUST have believed in these values to come up with a document like the Constitution, even if they didn't apply them as widely as they should have)

When people discuss the Founding Fathers, they're not interested in what the actual people were like so much as what their ideals were, since the Founding Fathers are remembered for these ideals.  By attacking the character of the Founding Fathers, Zinn is effectively attacking the worth of their ideals at a time when the country is increasingly inclined to throw said ideals out the window, much to the benefit of the wealthy elite class that the author seems to detest so much.


      "Live from the People's Republic"