Jamie Lee Curtis, Robert De Niro lead celebrities in Constitution

Jamie Lee Curtis and Robert De Niro solemnly reciting an oath to “support and defend the Constitution” would be funnier if it weren’t so predictable. This is the same crowd that spent years telling us the document is a living, breathing thing to be stretched into whatever shape fits the moment. Now they’ve made a little video for Constitution Day, as if the words only matter when the cameras are rolling.

The American Constitution Society is a left-wing legal outfit, and this campaign is a performance, not a promise. De Niro has called for the Constitution to be shredded if it gets in the way of his political preferences. Curtis has compared perfectly legal border enforcement to the Holocaust. Forgive us for not swooning when they read from a teleprompter.

What would actually be newsworthy? A celebrity who can explain what the Second Amendment actually says, or one who admits that the Constitution’s limits on government are the whole point. Instead we get Hollywood’s favorite prop — wait, no em dash, rewrite. Let me rephrase: Instead we get Hollywood’s favorite prop, the parchment they cite when it’s useful and ignore when it isn’t.

We’ll take a plainspoken citizen who knows the document over another celebrity oath any day. Reading the words isn’t the same as honoring them. But we suppose it makes for a nice press release.