WASHINGTON—As they cleaned their eyeglasses and stared at the faded, yellowing document through squinted eyes, the nation’s top constitutional scholars admitted Monday that the U.S. Constitution is open to differing interpretations because no one can read that crazy script. “After the heated negotiations of the Constitutional Convention, the Founding Fathers somehow neglected to recopy the document in a neat or even legible hand, thus their original intent is really anybody’s guess,” said legal scholar Cass Sunstein during a panel at the National Archives, where top law experts and historians conceded they had no idea whether Article II of the Constitution vests executive power in a “president,” or simply a “resident,” of the United States. “We’re in agreement that there are big headings with numbered articles, but once the rest of the text comes into play, we don’t have a clue. We found one word that as far as we can tell just says ‘sftcwafe,’ but that can’t be right. And take a look at those old-timey cursive F’s—or are they S’s? Or I’s? In any case, they’re totally out of control.” At press time, the scholars released a statement in which they acknowledged that even calling the country “the United States of America” is largely a matter of conjecture.

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