This New York Times headline, which I’ve used as the title of this blog post, seems to me to be confused.

From the exchange, it isn’t at all clear that Christine O’Donnell is “questioning” the separation of church and state that the establishment clause is generally regarded as enshrining. Instead, it seems that she’s simply unaware of what the First Amendment actually says.

You decide:

In a debate at the Widener University Law School, Ms. O’Donnell interrupted her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, as he argued that the Constitution does not allow public schools to teach religious doctrine.

“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” Ms. O’Donnell asked him, according to audio posted on the Web site of WDEL 1150 AM radio, which co-sponsored the debate.

The audience at the law school can be heard to break out in laughter. But Ms. O’Donnell refuses to be dissuaded and pushes forward.

“Let me just clarify,” she says. “You are telling me that the separation of church and state is in the First Amendment?”

When Mr. Coons offers a shorthand of the relevant section, saying, “government shall make no establishment of religion,” Ms. O’Donnell replies, “That’s in the First Amendment?”

There’s a major difference between questioning something — like whether or not the establishment clause actually enshrines a separation wall between church and state — and simply not knowing what the First Amendment actually says. On my reading, O’Donnell actually doesn’t know what is written in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights … at least when it comes to the interaction of government and religion, a topic about which she and those who would vote for her seem to care a great deal.

I’m not trying to score a cheap point against O’Donnell here, though it’s certainly possible to do so on this issue and on a good many others. Instead, I want to inquire about what it means for our democracy that a candidate for major public office seems not to know what’s written in our founding documents. This shouldn’t be read simply as a call for more elites in politics at the expense of, say, more popular candidates like O’Donnell; we don’t necessarily need more lawyers who become career politicians.

There’s obviously nothing inherently wrong with “outsiders” attempting to win elected office. I do wonder, though, whether this sort of outsider — who seems not to know a whole lot about American politics, or at least the American founding documents — signals a failure of our educational system or whether it simply demonstrates that many within the Tea Party movement — which at least sometimes preaches a back-to-the-founding mentality — really don’t understand what they’re saying they favor.