Obama to GOP: "Don't mock the constitution."

"One of them Rudy or Palin or one of them. They said well Senator Obama is less interested in protecting you from terrorists than reading them their rights. Well now, lets says this first of all, you don't get to read them their rights until you catch them. They should spend more time trying to catch Osama bin Laden and we can worry about the next steps later. I mean, seriously. These folks. Catch them first.

When you suspend habeus coprus which has been a principle even before even our country. It's the foundation of Anglo-American law. Which says very simply, if the government grabs you then you have the right to at least ask 'why was I grabbed' and say 'maybe you got the wrong person'. Now the reason you have that safeguard is because we don't always have the right person. We don't always catch the right person. We may thing this is Muhammad the terrorist. it' might be Muhammad the cab driver. You may think it's Barack the bomb thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.

So the point is, so the the reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism its because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting. Don't mock the constitution! Don't make fun of it! Don't suggest that it's unamerican to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years. These people."

There's more. While Obama's slow cadence is great for typing a transcript, I got lazy.