I Googled around until I could find a copy of this proposed European Constitution-thing that has everyone in France so rattled. I figured I’d find a document flowing with gilded language extolling the virtues of liberty and democracy. Something not unlike the “We the People…” that we mustered some 200+ years ago — maybe even something better, because, after all, people in Europe are both creative and passionate. Heck, I figured a Frenchman or Frenchwoman would have been involved, creating a preamble that rolled off the tongue with linguistic and democratic ease.

Nope. Wrong. Instead of “We the People,” or even “As Europeans United,” you get a list of every monarch, president, prime minister, grand duke and Big Man on the Totem Pole in the entire European Union, starting off with the less-than-poetic prose: “HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE BELGIANS, THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC, HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF DENMARK…” blah, blah, blah.