Maybe the word "ultimate" was wrong. "Best" is a better description. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html?_r=1&hp

In 1987, on the Constitution’s bicentennial, Time magazine calculated that “of the 170 countries that exist today, more than 160 have written charters modeled directly or indirectly on the U.S. version.”

A quarter-century later, the picture looks very different. “The U.S. Constitution appears to be losing its appeal as a model for constitutional drafters elsewhere,” according to a new study by David S. Law of Washington University in St. Louis and Mila Versteeg of the University of Virginia.

The study, to be published in June in The New York University Law Review, bristles with data. Its authors coded and analyzed the provisions of 729 constitutions adopted by 188 countries from 1946 to 2006, and they considered 237 variables regarding various rights and ways to enforce them.

“Among the world’s democracies,” Professors Law and Versteeg concluded, “constitutional similarity to the United States has clearly gone into free fall. Over the 1960s and 1970s, democratic constitutions as a whole became more similar to the U.S. Constitution, only to reverse course in the 1980s and 1990s.

Jesus versus the GOP

[snip] We do not know very much about the historical Jesus. But everything we know indicates that the carpenter from Galilee would not have been pleased to learn that this pack of coldhearted, sanctimonious, wealth-exalting politicians were claiming to be his followers.

I’m not saying that Jesus would have been a Democrat. Anyone who pretends to find support for specific political policies or ideologies in the Bible is delusional. Scholars cannot agree if Jesus was a social revolutionary, a tortured mystic, or something altogether different. Even what Jesus himself believed about the most essential aspects of what was to become “Christianity’ – a religion founded not by him, but by his disciple Paul of Tarsus — is unclear. As leading biblical scholar Bart Ehrman noted in “Jesus, Interrupted,” some of the most important Christian doctrines, including the divinity of Christ, the Trinity and the concept of heaven and hell, were not held by Jesus himself: They were added later, when the church transformed itself into a new religion rather than a Jewish sect.

Ehrman told me that the authors of the four Gospels portray Jesus in such contradictory ways that there is no intellectually honest way to reconcile them. Mark, for example, depicts Jesus as doubting and despairing on the way to the cross, while Luke portrays him as calm. Ehrman argues that such contradictory accounts can only be reconciled by creating, in effect, a bogus “fifth Gospel” that does not exist.

But having said all that, we still have the evidence of the Bible itself. And one does not need to believe in the infallibility of that document to see that the Jesus who is depicted in it was implacably opposed to authoritarianism, warmongering, contempt for the poor, exaltation of wealth, conformity, and sanctimoniousness – in short, everything the contemporary Republican Party stands for. ...

We have no idea what position Jesus would have taken on progressive taxation or whether he would have supported the Dodd-Frank Act. But we do know that Jesus, unlike Gingrich and Romney, was concerned about the poor. In fact, he made it clear that concern for the poor was an absolutely essential principle of his faith. ...

Romney’s statement that he was “not concerned about the very poor” is telling. For Jesus explicitly stated that he was concerned not just about the poor, but about the poorest, the lowest and most despised members of society. ...

But Jesus’ most explicit repudiation of the GOP’s ethos is found in Luke 16:19, in his famous story of Lazarus and the rich man. ...

The Republican candidates all claim to be devout Christians. But between the compassionate teachings of Jesus and their coldhearted, mean-spirited ideology, there is a great gulf.

Whether Gingrich and Romney’s callous attitude toward the least among us will hurt them with the 78 percent of Americans who claim to be Christians is uncertain. From the 1925 publication of “The Man Nobody Knows,” a bestseller that depicted Jesus as a successful businessman, there is a long tradition of smug, self-serving Christianity in this country, a Christianity easily compatible with the harshest and most uncharitable values and beliefs. ...

Um...

I am not really a big fan of the current Republican Party (I am more of a libertarian or centrist), but let's just take one line in that rant above:

"...authoritarianism, warmongering, contempt for the poor, exaltation of wealth, conformity, and sanctimoniousness – in short, everything the contemporary Republican Party stands for. ..."

- authoritarianism - Culturally maybe, but not really economically. The GOP usually preaches things like school choice, the free market, low taxes, and less state. That is actually the opposite of authoritarianism. 

- warmongering - tired 1960s leftist rhetoric. Traditionally, the Republican party has been far less "warmongering" than the Democratic Party, if you consider that World War I and II, and also Korea and Vietnam were entered into by Democratic presidents. Ron Paul is hardly a warmonger, and I don't see Romney as one, either. How can you say that John McCain, who suffered in a war, is a "warmonger" ? 

- contempt for the poor - just flat incorrect. The U.S. has 50 "anti-poverty programs" and spends $ 1 trillion annually on them, and that expanded under George Bush, who considered himself a proponent of "compassionate conservatism" and Catholic social theory. 

- conformity - the Religious Right, certainly. But not the Ron Paul wing of the GOP. And it has not been the right in America that has created "free speech zones" (i.e. limiting free speech everywhere else) on campuses, and which is responsible for political correctness. The Left pays lip service to individual liberty and tolerance (some call it Big Tolerance), while mostly demanding conformity to orthodox left-liberalism, and uses federal law to back that up. The Democratic Party is far more into identity politics than is the right. 

- sanctimoniousness - not really. A rich Republican will tell you he loves money. A left-liberal who makes 6 figures will preach leftism, while living the life of a super-captialist. 19 of the 20 richest counties in America vote Democrat. 

That part of your post would please http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/06/ which writes:

"Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence."

I bet I kind find some people that have pretty low intelligence that believe things like: 

- the CIA was responsible for 9/11

- Obama will give us free gas and free mortgages

- etc. 

... by the way, free market advocates are different than conservatives. I would call myself a Classical Liberal and a proponent of free markets, but not a conservative along the lines of the CSU/CDU here in Germany, or the current Republicans, in America. 

I dunno...but when I see "Canadian study" and Psychological Science, referring to any aspect of American life, well, it's two strikes right off. 

Make of Scott what you will....