As Patterico noted a couple years back when coining the phrase “dumb aleck” to describe Dana Milbank, someone needs to explain to Tim Cavanaugh of Reason that sarcasm only works when you know what you are talking about. Cavanaugh, you may recall, is the Reason luminary who banned me from commenting at “Reason’s” aptly-named “Hit and Run” blog, for pointing out the fact that lawyer / Reason contributor Michael McMenamin was lying when he claimed Judith Miller was sentenced to a prison sentence (the term of which Miller herself mysteriously managed to short a few months later simply by promising to start obeying the law that had gotten her in there to begin with), pulls another doozy on Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, whom he accuses of “giv[ing] a less-than-strict constructionist reading” of the Fourth Amendment. Hayden’s crime? Apparently, it was having had the audacity to actually read the damned thing:

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I’d like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American’s right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use—

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually—the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. That’s what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

Apparently oblivious to the fact that Hayden was right, Cavanaugh goes on to quote “the Fightin’ Fourth” in its entirety, in not one language but two, as if to prove Hayden was wrong. I’ll skip the Spanish version, and focus instead on the two English versions, namely, the real one and the one Cavanaugh must have thought he was reading while busily cutting and pasting:

Real Amendment (as quoted, but apparently not understood, by Tim Cavanaugh):

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
[Emphasis added.]

Cavanaugh version:

The right of the people … blah blah blah … against … blah …. searches and seizures … blah blah blah …. probable cause … blah blah blah, hoo hah, Hayden’s a dumbass.

I look forward to Cavanaugh’s grammatically challenged reading of the remainder of his precious Constitution. Here are a few possibilities:

• The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, but only to the press.
• The Second Amendment guarantees the right of the people to be necessary and well-regulated, and the right of arms to keep and bear militias.
• The Third Amendment prohibits soldiers from being quartered in houses, but only if the owner consents, and then only if the occupation is in a manner prescribed by law.
• The Fifth Amendment prohibits your property from testifying against itself for public use, unless a grand jury has indicted it twice for the same offense without due process of law.
• The Sixth Amendment guarantees your right to speedy witnesses and to be confronted by your own counsel.
• The Seventh Amendment requires all common law suits to exceed $20.00.
• The Eighth Amendment prohibits the state from requiring excessively cruel and unusual bail, and also prohibits all fines and punishments of any kind.
• The Ninth Amendment prohibits anyone from using the Constitution to “deny or disparage others,” as I am doing to Cavanaugh in my blog entry, and as Cavanaugh himself attempted and failed miserably to do to Hayden in his.
• The Tenth Amendment provides that all powers not delegated to the federal government are prohibited to the states.

Those are just a few possibilities, of course. Once you start Cavanaugh-reading the Constitution, the opportunities are limitless.

UPDATE: Et tu, Uncly-Wuncly.

UPDATE x2: Orin Kerr has more, as does Adam White, who helpfully reprints the exchange in full.