This Ragin' Independent criticizes Obama freely. Deranged right-winger pundits criticize him freely. [G]op-er politicians criticize him freely. But who the hell else ever does? And trust me, he needs and deserves it, as one of the two worst presidents (along with W Bush) of my lifetime and perhaps the most far left-wing president in American history. That's why I appreciated the linked story so much. To set it up...On Monday, Obama took to the press to go on a dictator-reminiscent rant about the possibility of the U.S. Supreme Court finding to be unconstitutional the so-called "individual mandate" portion of the leftists' Obamacare monstrosity. During his diatribe, Obama nonsensically and disgustingly suggested that federal courts do not have power to review the constitutionality of federal (and state) statutes -- equating such an exercise of power with "judicial activism."
Never mind that the power of federal courts to review statutes for constitutionality has been established by over 200 years of precedent. Never mind that plenty of statutes that have been unpopular with leftist 20 percenters like Obama have been struck down over the years for being unconstitutional (were those instances of "judicial activism," too?). Never mind that I can never in my life recall a sitting president purporting to lecture the court system on its powers and what it "must" understand and do in a particular case. No lawyer in his right mind would ever do that in court or in a court filing. In short: Bully (and frankly, not so bright) Obama on full display.
But fast forward to yesterday in the (federal) Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a separate lawsuit is also challenging the Obamacare law. One of the judges on that court, Jerry Smith (yes, appointed by a gop-er president), had taken notice of Obama's outlandish Monday remarks and took to task the purported former constitutional law professor Obama by grilling one of his DOJ attorneys (for whom I actually feel sorry) in open court. Please enjoy this as much as I did:
-Judge Smith: "Does the Department of Justice recognize that federal courts have the authority in appropriate circumstances to strike federal statutes because of one or more constitutional infirmities?"
-DOJ attorney Dana Kaersvang: "Yes, your honor. Of course, there would need to be a severability analysis, but yes."
-Judge Smith: "I'm referring to statements by the president in the past few days to the effect…that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed 'unelected' judges to strike acts of Congress that have enjoyed — he was referring, of course, to Obamacare — what he termed broad consensus in majorities in both houses of Congress. That has troubled a number of people who have read it as somehow a challenge to the federal courts or to their authority or to the appropriateness of the concept of judicial review. And that's not a small matter. So I want to be sure that you're telling us that the attorney general and the Department of Justice do recognize the authority of the federal courts through unelected judges to strike acts of Congress or portions thereof in appropriate cases."
-Kaersvang: "Marbury v. Madison is the law, your honor, but it would not make sense in this circumstance to strike down this statute, because there’s no –"
-Judge Smith: "I would like to have from you by noon on Thursday…a letter stating what is the position of the attorney general and the Department of Justice, in regard to the recent statements by the president, stating specifically and in detail in reference to those statements what the authority is of the federal courts in this regard in terms of judicial review. That letter needs to be at least three pages single spaced, no less, and it needs to be specific. It needs to make specific reference to the president’s statements and again to the position of the attorney general and the Department of Justice."
OUCH-O-Bama!!! And I'd take special care not to double space them lines, if I was you, DOJ!
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/04/03/dojs-homework-assignment-tell-fifth-circuit-whether-it-supports-judicial-review/
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