What Kind of Justice Would President Obama Mete Out?
Barack Obama may have been a professor of constitutional law, but some of his ideas about the role of the Supreme Court could be problematic. Which justices would he appoint if given the chance?
Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, never tires of telling his audiences that he was a constitutional law professor and, therefore, particularly qualified to address the sticky constitutional issues which the next president will face. Indeed, his early fame came, in large measure, from his status as the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Both because he offers his legal background as a qualification for the presidency and because the next president may have the opportunity to appoint five or more Supreme Court justices (plus as many as two hundred lower court judges), it is worthwhile to look at Obama’s views on the Constitution and his criteria for selecting judges.
Judges as social workers
Obama has described his views on the role of the courts and the proper criteria for picking judges. In a recent interview with Wolf Blitzer, Obama explained:
Now there’s going to be those 5 percent of cases or 1 percent of cases where the law isn’t clear. And the judge then has to bring in his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings. And in those circumstances, what I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can’t have access to political power and as a consequence can’t protect themselves from being — from being dealt with sometimes unfairly. That the courts become a refuge for justice. That’s been its historic role. That was its role in Brown v. Board of Education.
Recently his spokesman stated, “Barack Obama has always believed that our courts should stand up for social and economic justice, and what’s truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves.”
Well what’s wrong with all that? Plenty, if you believe in the separation of powers and democracy, according to noted conservative legal scholars.
Steven Calabresi, professor of law at Northwestern University and co-founder of the Federalist Society (who also serves on John McCain’s legal advisory committee), says “I think it means he has completely the wrong idea of what a judge is supposed to do.” He notes that since the first Congress all judges have taken an oath to “do equal justice unto the rich and the poor,” but, by asking judges in essence to side with the less well off, Obama is “calling on judges to disregard this.”
Taken literally, Obama’s conceives the role of the courts as roving advocates of the poor and disadvantaged who will look, not to the text and meaning of the Constitution, but to their own ethics and values — presumably very left-leaning ones — to override statutes, executive branch actions, and the American people themselves.
Given that, one wonders if confirmation hearings for Obama judicial appointees should skip over questions of the law and focus on the appointees’ religious and ethical views, their childhood experiences, and even their record of charitable giving. How else will we know whether they are “sympathetic enough”?
Aside from his judicial philosophy, Obama’s views on specific matters of constitutional law are no secret — and bear little resemblance to the body of case law which has built up over the last thirty years.
Abortion extremism
On abortion, Obama is an absolutist. Last April, he took strong exception to the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act (which had passed the House 281-142 and the Senate 64 [including 16 Democrats] to 33).
This is not simply then someone who believes women should have the last say in deciding whether to have an abortion, but one who believes that the courts should entirely displace the view of huge congressional majorities and public opinion to discern, as Calabresi bluntly puts it, “a constitutional right to dismember babies in a painful and somewhat violent way.” There is virtually no regulation or limit on abortion which Obama would likely find acceptable.
Here we see the fallacy of Obama’s notion that, in the absence of clear constitutional language, judges should resort to their own ethical precepts to decide cases. Obama’s own expressed views of judicial interpretation might lead many judges to a result utterly at odds with the one he has in mind. Robert P. George, Princeton professor of law (also on McCain’s legal advisory team) observes, “His definition of the ‘vulnerable’ and the ‘powerless’ fits the unborn to a ‘t’.”
George explains that we have disputes in our country both about who “counts” as powerless and how we should treat them, but that these issues must be resolved within our “constitutional system.” He says, “For courts to interfere with no constitutional warrant and displace the people is a sin against democracy.”
Colorblind racism
On matters of race Obama is no more moderate. Last year the Supreme Court decided cases from the Seattle and Louisville school systems which concerned whether, in the absence of any history of discrimination or after expiration of any court order to remedy past discrimination, children could be assigned to schools by race. A majority of the court held they could not under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Obama railed at the decisions, declaring they reflected “a disturbing view of the Constitution that equates voluntary integration with Jim Crow segregation — a view that is both legally and morally wrong” and would usher in an end to Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregation in schools.
In his view, a bar on using race to assign children to school spells the return to “separate but equal.” Moreover, to reach that result (and agree with the dissenters in the cases) Obama would have demanded that the Court repeal more than twenty years of established case law which held that affirmative action measures must pass a “strict scrutiny” standard (requiring a compelling interest by the state and means narrowly tailored to reach that end).
But Obama’s view of these cases should come as no surprise. He has consistently opposed a colorblind view of civil rights. In 2006 the Michigan Civil Right Initiative appeared on the ballot and passed overwhelmingly, 58-42%. It stated, “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”
Obama did not merely oppose this measure; he cut a radio ad declaring: “If the initiative becomes law it would wipe out programs that help women and minorities get a good education and jobs. It would hurt initiatives that help women and minorities build their own businesses. And it would eliminate efforts to help our children enter fields such as science, engineering, and mathematics. Proposal 2 closes these doors to many in Michigan and it moves us further away from a country of full opportunity.”
But of course the measure did no such thing. It in no way affected efforts to “help children” or other programs so long as they did not use race or other protected categories to classify people. How would women and minorities have been hurt in building their own businesses by a measure that says all citizens should be treated without regard to gender and race? It is a mystery.
But what Obama opposes is crystal clear. Both as a matter of policy and Supreme Court doctrine, he objects to the concept that the government should not classify its citizens by race except in compelling circumstances (such as the need to remedy past discrimination).
Gun ban: Tipping his hand
When it suits him, Obama declares that it is not appropriate for him to comment on constitutional case law. With regard to the most significant Second Amendment case in 40 years, District of Columbia v. Heller, Obama has claimed it improper (for unknown reasons) for him to opine on a pending case. In this case the D.C. Circuit Court struck down what is essentially a total ban on handgun ownership, finding that the Second Amendment should be interpreted as securing an individual right to bear arms.
In deflecting questions on this case Obama has alternately claimed that he does not comment on pending legal matters (Except on race or abortion cases? Or only if they don’t impact swing state voters?), or that he is unfamiliar with the case, an odd remark from a constitutional scholar on a case that has been the subject of dozens of detailed press accounts over the last year. But he did provide one hint: he declined to join with 55 of his Senate and 250 of his House colleagues in an amicus brief urging that the Court strike down the handgun ban.
And here again we see at work the worst of his results-oriented legal reasoning. Obama at times has suggested that an individual right to own a handgun might exist but that the “common sense” regulation by the District of Colombia might be upheld.
But this is simply incorrect as a matter of basic constitutional principles. It is casebook law that a constitutional right once determined can only be abrogated (as it was, the circuit court decided, by an outright ban in the D.C. gun case) when the law at issue passes muster under the strict scrutiny standard, not merely by a finding that the law is a “common sense” or, in legal parlance, “reasonable” one.
Indeed, if his theory of constitutional law were applied in the abortion arena, not only would partial birth abortion bans be upheld but so would many other types of “common sense” regulations such as waiting time periods. As Calabresi points out, Obama’s view seems to be that “it’s just fine with guns but not if you’re a teenage girl wanting an abortion.” Calabresi concludes that these are simply Obama’s personal policy views which have “nothing to do with the Constitution.”
Shaping the courts for generations
These issues and many others are not mere academic exercises. Under the next president, nearly 200 lower courts, which are in essence the “minor leagues” for future Supreme Court appointments, will be filled. And of course the entire Supreme Court could be refashioned.
We know from Obama’s vote (one of only 22) opposing the confirmation of now-Chief Justice Roberts that Obama will not be content to appoint a highly regarded Supreme Court advocate and judge. He apparently wants no part of a judge whose judicial philosophy can be summed up as: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them.” We’ve seen repeatedly that Obama wants, not a referee, but a tenth man on the field — or rather one who always joins the team currently behind on the scoreboard.
Would Obama appoint his noted legal advisor and University of Chicago Law School professor Cass Sunstein? Ivy league law schools are now filled with scholars like Sunstein who argue that the Constitution secures rights such as the right to welfare or who contend that not only is abortion a constitutional right, but so is the right to government funding of those abortions.
Certainly, Obama will find no shortage of liberal law professors who do not take the words of the First Amendment literally and would uphold not just restrictions on free speech in campaign finance reform, but the return of the so-called “fairness doctrine” which would enact equal time mandates, essentially driving talk radio out of business.
Too far-fetched you say? Not at all. When a president and his appointees depart from the notion that the proper role of judges is (as best as they are able) to interpret and apply the language and meaning of statutes and the Constitution, we head into a brave new era of rule by judges who are very likely to share the ultra-left-leaning views of the president who appoints them.
And if Americans have come to believe the rhetoric of Democrats from numerous confirmation hearings that there are few values dearer than stare decisis (the respect accorded precedent in judicial interpretation), they might be sorely disappointed in an Obama judiciary. For to achieve the ends he seeks, we will need to travel back in time to the era of the (Earl) Warren Court — ripping up case after case as we go to arrive back in a time when the issue was not what does the law say but, in the frequent refrain of Chief Justice Warren, “Is it fair?”
We know for sure is that this is precisely what Obama wants and very likely what he will get if elected.
PJM’s special DC correspondent Jennifer Rubin is a writer living in Virginia. She is a regular contributor to Human Events, American Spectator and the New York Observer and blogs at Commentary’s Contentions.
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52 Comments
1. David Thomson:Barack “Barry” Obama graduated from Harvard Law School. This well known university is vastly overrated. It has become something of a joke. When everything is said and done, Obama is advocating lawlessness. He is so intellectually shallow, however, that he is incapable of taking his ideas to their logical conclusion. The guy is utterly unaware that he is literally calling for the end of civilization! The leftist postmodernist approach to the Constitution inevitably leaves us hostage to the whims and caprices of those in power. Might make right. Americans must soon put a halt to this nonsense—or we will inevitable return to an era prehistory savagery.
May 26, 2008 - 6:05 am 2. Concerned Citizen:Correct, David. The application of Obama’s version of interpreting the constitution will result in the evisceration of the powers of congress, our elected lawmaking representatives. A very dangerous man at the edge of great powers.
May 26, 2008 - 7:36 am 3. Brian Richard Allen:There is no evidence that any truth supports Sa-id B Hussein bin B Hussein bin Hussayn (B Hussein) Obambi’s untiring efforts to have “his audiences (believe that he was ever) a constitutional law professor.” Although he might, for a time, have been a law lecturer/tutor.
Meanwhile, however, B Hussein’s public record shows not a scintilla of evidence he has ever read America’s Founding Law and/or that he comprehends it and/or is himself capable of either interpreting or adjudicating it and/or might ever be capable of nominating those who might ever.
May 26, 2008 - 8:15 am 4. Jim_in_Eire_CO:His claim to having been a Constitutional Law Professor has long, to long, been allowed to pass without challenge.
May 26, 2008 - 9:03 am 5. Daedalus:As it is one of his base arguments that he has any experience at all, it should be one of the first items that the McCain Campaign points out as an outright lie.
This makes it apparent that Obama’s attitude toward the law is not the rule of law, but his personal version of social justice. He does not believe in the time tested method of changing legislation to achieve results, but instead relies on activist judges to meet what cannot be achieved in the legislature and through the ballot box. This makes Obama by far the scariest Presidential candidate, that this country has ever experienced. But the even scarier thought is the lemming personality of the people who follow this charismatic senator. The press has been totally silent on him and most people appear to be afraid to criticize him. The laxity of the main stream media has allowed Obama to define what can be talked about and what cannot, and now it appears virtually anything that is negative to him is also off limits.
May 26, 2008 - 9:10 am 6. The Jude Oracle:An early step on the road to Tyranny is the ‘inventing’ history to suit the (planned) future. The second is Rule of Man as opposed to the Rule of Law.
Both as a personal and a political statement, these steps indicate an agenda that includes a radical dismantling of our constitutional republic, our legacy of true opportunity and the world’s most vibrant economic miracle.
Vote McCain. Send $$$. Stay involved.
May 26, 2008 - 10:12 am 7. BMoon:Obama’s understanding of law is much like a spoiled rich kid’s understanding of money- he has no idea of where it comes or how to protect it. It is simply something to be used for a combination of purposes, whether it be for his misunderstanding of “social justice” (code word for Marxism,) or crude personal self-aggrandizement. For him and his leftist post-modernist, Hegelian ilk, the law and Constitution are silly putty – you pull and stretch it anyway you want.
May 26, 2008 - 10:20 am 8. dee98:Obama Speaks to Veterens in Puerto Rico
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May 26, 2008 - 11:28 am 9. dirigible:Where did this strange idea come from that Obama is smart? As we’ve seen recently, his notions of 20th century history, geopolitics, economics, and the Constitution range from embarrassingly simple-minded to flat-out bizarre. They might be forgivable in a 20 year old. But Obama is of middle age. He ain’t no kid. So what’s his excuse?
May 26, 2008 - 11:55 am 10. Tood:Five SC Justices? How? Even if he is President for 8 years (unlikely), how do you figure five?
Two, maybe three. Still too many. But replacing a leftist with a leftist still is a wash from where we are now. The only worries are whether Scalia or Kennedy get replaced during Obama’s regime. I also worry about Clarence Thomas. He is young, but he appears to be obese, which leads to lower life expectancy.
May 26, 2008 - 12:00 pm 11. marcus:My nightmare scenario? Obama appoints Hillary to the Court, in exchange for her active support in the general. (shudders)
May 26, 2008 - 12:06 pm 12. MarkJ:Obama must be a real Civil War buff, because, judging from his legal philosophy–such as it is–Prince Charming seems hell-bound and determined to bring on another one.
May 26, 2008 - 12:34 pm 13. David Thomson:“Where did this strange idea come from that Obama is smart?”
I’ve already answered that question. Rarack “Barry” Obama graduated from Harvard Law School. These people are often poorly educated. Harvard is something of a scam operation. I highly recommend that you read Ross Douthat’s, PRIVILEGE: HARVARD AND THE EDUCATION OF THE RULING CLASS.
May 26, 2008 - 12:44 pm 14. Paul M Hupf:Senator Obama increasingly displays a Marxist posture. Those “bitter” people in Pennsylvania; his refusal to salute the flag; his association with Ayers and Dorhn, whose political endeavors include the use of explosives; his 20 year association with the minister who denounces the country he wants to lead as President; all are indicators. If, then, as President, he nominates justices for the U S Supreme Court to insure that “personal rights”, i.e. preferential treatment for the politically favored, will be the test of constitutionality, our republic will no longer be a republic. It will be a Marxist state.
May 26, 2008 - 12:52 pm 15. JeanneB:I’m no lawyer, but it sounds like there are those here who can answer my question.
Isn’t there a legal concept regarding my individual right to know what the law is (and is not)? Let’s say I’m a rich fat cat and I want to enter a contract. I have my lawyers thoroughly vet every line to make sure it’s legal. Now, the contract may not be fair to the other party, but the law says it is not unconstitutional?
In Obama’s world it wouldn’t matter. The court could find my contract illegal simply because it disadvantaged some less fortunate soul. And I’m left holding a constitution that has no meaning—none that can be relied upon, that is.
May 26, 2008 - 1:23 pm 16. Vinnie Vidivici:Daedalus nails it. Seems Obama would remove the blindfold from lady justice and replace equality before the law with ‘justice’ meted out according to individual special pleading, class affiliation, gender/ethnic/sexual-orientation group membership, position on the grievance/victim hierarchy, etc.
And why not? Members of politically-fashionable groups are already held to different standards as it is.
Just think of how easy the Duke ‘rape’ case would have been! No time-wasting procedural tedium or consideration of the merits when worthy petitioners, defendants and litigants can be quickly identified by the Marx-O-Meter Class Virtue Detector(tm)?
This time around, who gets to decide which of us will reprise the roles Kulaks and landlord-class enemies? And will the absence of callouses on our hands count against us?
May 26, 2008 - 1:35 pm 17. The Jude Oracle:Unfortunately ’smart’ is not a job requirement to run the worlds most powerful country, but a modicum of patriotism and pride in the USA should be.
I get the feeling that being ’smart’ in the sense of running on a platform of radical social-engineering and uber-liberal, recycled promises of paradise via a state-controlled redistributive justice is enough to hoodwink the media. (Does anyone know the 2nd verse of “Kumbaya”?) But smart in the ’street-smart’ sense of protecting our country “from enemies, foreign and domestic” is obviously not in B. Hussein’s playbook.
Maybe a ‘up-close & personal’ unscripted (without ‘preconditions’ or even ‘preparations’?) tour of the social workers paradises of N.Korea, Cuba and Myanamar would give him an education that he missed from the over 100 million deaths in totalitarian states in the last bloody century.
The state-centric, planned socialist model has been thoroughly discredited. To know that you dont have to be too smart: you could even have graduated from Haavaard and figured that one out. Just go look in the Dustbin Of History.
May 26, 2008 - 1:36 pm 18. B-Rob:David Thomson and dirigible:
“Where did this strange idea come from that Obama is smart?”
Neither you two nor Hugh Hewitt do yourselves or the conservative movement any good when you refuse to acknowledge the obvious. Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude, meaning, by definition, he was among the best of the very best of the student body. Harvard is any rational measure, one of the five best law schools in the country, along some mixture of with U. Chicago, Yale, Stanford, U.Va., Michigan. It was “good enough” a school that with Breyer, Souter, Scalia, Kennedy and Roberts, Harvard law grads represent a majority of the current Supreme Court and, dare I say, have had a disproportionate influence on American law for the last 200 years.
Obama, by dint of his academic performance (not to mention years as a respected professor of con law at a top five law school) places himself well in the thick of the most elite legal community: they know it, he knows it, and deep down inside, you know it, too.
For those of you who refuse to acknowledge the reality of his quite obvious high intelligence, you are either ill-informed and ignorant, or you are being intentionally obtuse. Indeed, I seem to recall that their respective scholarship at Harvard was SO IMPORTANT when John Roberts and Sam Alito were under consideration for the high court; your refusal to acknowledge the same with Obama, a graduate of the same damn school with the same damn grades, simply undercuts any shred of credibility you might want to have before commenting on such issues. Or it discloses some OTHER bias (*ahem*) that I will not address here.
May 26, 2008 - 2:30 pm 19. B-Rob:The article was rather deficient, since it did little more than spew inference after inference about what the author THINKS motivates Obama’s SC choices.
It does nothing to enlighten us as to WHO he might put on the court. More on that later. But first, I want to address John Robert’s “umpire” theory of judging. Roberts said, in essence, that a proper judge only calls balls and strikes. But let’s work with the analogy. Anyone who follows baseball knows that where a judge stands (left shoulder of catcher, right shoulder) and how high or low he crouches affects how balls a strikes are called. Some referees have a reputation for calling a wide strike zone, some give the high strike, and some are known to play favorites or give superstars more leeway. By calling himself a “mere umpire”, Roberts does not acknowledge that that alone does not describe HOW he will call the game. When you look at Roberts, again using the analogy, he stood on the right shoulder and, thus, called strikes wide on the right and tight on the left. He also tended to favor the superstar batter or pitcher at the expense of the opposing journeyman pitcher or batter. Obama merely seeks to balance that bias with judges who sit on the left shoulder and who might expect more from the elite players and thus call a harder game for them.
And who might Obama put on the Supreme Court? People like Stephen Carter or Akil Amar from Yale, Kathleen Sullivan from Stanford, Elena Kagan from Harvard (who he taught with at Chicago), and Sunstein, mentioned earlier. All brilliant, all in their early 50s or late 40s, all with impeccable credentials. And isn’t that what we WANT on the Supreme Court?
May 26, 2008 - 2:42 pm 20. david levavi:“…he was a constitutional law professor and, therefore, particularly qualified to address the sticky constitutional issues which the next president will face.”
Americans don’t need a president who can hairsplit Constitutional law. There is no shortage of constitutional lawyers available the nation can turn to for consultation if the need comes up.
What Americans need is a president with a deep reverence for the constitution. Someone who doesn’t view the words and ideas of the founding fathers as a departure point for racialist and socialist improvisation. Law aint jazz.
I’m no lawyer but Obama’s approach of the Constitution appears similar to Jeremiah Wright’s approach to the Bible. A universally respected document open to the broadest interpretation, deconstruction and subversion.
Harvard is a fine university and Obama is undeniably a bright and charming fellow. No doubt he’s a fine constitutional lawyer. But does he love the Constitution? Is he committed to never twisting its meaning to serve racialist and socialist agendas he deems just?
This voter doesn’t think so.
May 26, 2008 - 3:31 pm 21. The Jude Oracle:To B-Rob
“And isn’t that what we WANT on the Supreme Court?”
No. I want a Supreme who will honor my formal contract with my government (a.k.a the Constitution) and not find new ‘rights’ in a ‘living constitution’ for the.
A slow and difficult amendment process is in place to revise the Constitution, if needed. This is designed to protect people like me from the tyrannical abuses of unelected legislate- from- the- bench judicial activists with a social/ economic/ religious/ moral agenda to redistribute, equalize, abort, isolate or otherwise socially- engineer my country.
This is what I want: A conservative Justice which honors the Constitution ‘as written’.
May 26, 2008 - 3:37 pm 22. Jack:The analysis of Obama’s statement may be a victim of overthinking. Of course, Federalists do take exception to Brown vs Board of Education. It may have been the writer had already made a decision about ol’ Barak and was looking to pounce on anything he might say in the hope of magnifying the consequences. Of course, it is the political season and everybody’s doing it, not just the Federalists. I’ll be happy when it’s over.
May 26, 2008 - 4:34 pm 23. David Thomson:“…places himself well in the thick of the most elite legal community”
Yes, and that’s the problem. The so-called “most elite legal community” is often comprised of second rate academics. These people are incapable of thinking and following a logical argument. And in Barack “Barry” Obama’s case—we are rapidly realizing that he is an intellectual lightweight. It is time that the “elites” cease getting a free ride. They should be compelled to earn their credentials. The scandalous situation at Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, and other academic institutions of ill repute must come to a screeching halt.
May 26, 2008 - 5:09 pm 24. Michele:It was my understanding according to Hugh Hewitt that Obama was not a “professor”. He was a lesser constitutional law instructor. It might have been an “instructor” title, I don’t recall.
As you know, if Obama said it, it may be true or it may not.
May 26, 2008 - 5:58 pm 25. Snowflakes in Hell » Good:[...] Hopefully they can clean this mess up before we’re looking at President Obama. Also, Dave points to an article that talks about the kinds of justices that Obama would likely [...]
May 26, 2008 - 6:00 pm 26. david levavi:B-Rob:
You and I are on the same page. Running down Harvard’s worth and Obama’s intelligence is silly, unbecoming and counterproductive.
Likewise dismissing Bush as a semi-literate cowboy shilling for Big Oil. Or calling Cheney a Fascist and a war-criminal shilling for Haliburton.
Where we part company, B-Rob, is your smug and superior assumption that opposition to Obama is covertly (ahem) racism.
My wife and I voted for David Dinkins nearly two decades ago. We have offspring at Harvard and at equally prestigious and liberal universities. We are past contributors to Black causes. But neither we nor our children as far as we know are voting for Obama.
Obama’s shortcomings have no more to do with intelligence than Ralph Nader’s or Noam Chomsky’s. And (hats off to Geraldine Ferraro for the courage to say so)race has done Obama more good than harm.
I think you would have to agree that many white Americans are voting for Obama mainly to feel virtuous and fashionable. And 90% of the black vote is a racial tilt in Obama’s favor.
Obama’s is radioactive to voters like myself for the same reason your suggested candidates for the Supreme Court are radioactive. It has nothing to do with intelligence or academic credentials. Their smarmy leftist politics–contemptuous of honest merit and supportive of racial preferences, quotas and every form of social engineering–stink to high heaven.
Americans want change not revolution. We had a revolution in 1776 and we’re happy with the result. No Marxist, Fascist or Black National adjustments required.
May 26, 2008 - 6:30 pm 27. What Kind of Justice Would President Obama Mete Out? « TMQ2:[...] May 26, 2008 by Lance Barack Obama may have been a professor of constitutional law, but some of his ideas about the role of the Supreme Court could be problematic. Which justices would he appoint if given the chance? }} more… [...]
May 26, 2008 - 8:39 pm 28. Misanthropicus:RE B-Rob “Where did this strange idea come from that Obama is smart?”
“[...] Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude, meaning, by definition, he was among the best of the very best of the student body. [...]”
1) Harvard Law Review is a students outfit; as membership it has about 20-30% of the law school’s students population, the rest couldn’t care less about it, and HLR raciotinations interest few (Tony Rezko types);
2) “He graduated magna cum laude, meaning, by definition, he was among the best of the very best of the student body. [...}"
Answer - in the first place he entered Harvard as an "equal opportunity" student not propelled by grades (now he runs for president on the same grounds), i.e. his being there meaning that he dislodged many better qualified applicants. As far magna cum laude - relax, this is Harvard's little dirty secret - you don't get a B, you get a magna cum laude.
"[...] Obama [...] years as a respected professor of con law at a top five law school [...].”
May 26, 2008 - 9:05 pm 29. Bill45:More reasons for relaxation – Obama wasn’t a law professor, he was a part-time intructor or something, and during his impressive tenure there WROTE ONLY TWO papers on law (do a Lexus Nexus on this if don’t believe it). His students remember his class as (funny thing, this reminds me of Bill Clinton’s Admirality Law class in Little Rock(?) a fill in, and him as having the curious talent of not engaging anyone and of not being clear on anything – this holographic mister Obama, and now his talents have become a national liability.
B-Rob posted: “…And who might Obama put on the Supreme Court? People like …All brilliant, all in their early 50s or late 40s, all with impeccable credentials. And isn’t that what we WANT on the Supreme Court?…”
No. Both Roberts and Alito fit that description as well and Obama maanaged to vote “no” to both.
May 27, 2008 - 4:35 am 30. Bill45:Can anyone explain the Harvard Law standards for magna cum laude in 1988-1991? While I have found reference onl-line to serious inflation of latin honors at Harvard generally — 90% of graduate achiveing some Latin honor — and reference to efforts to restore meaning to it, I could find nothing specific to HLS.
Did Obama earn magna cum laude honors based strictly on classroom and academic performance?
How much did election as president of the law review contribute to the MCL honor? Does any Harvard Law Review president NOT graduate with MCL?
May 27, 2008 - 4:40 am 31. Benji Conyers:The trouble with Blarney Barry is that he grew up as a pampered, self-regarding only son with no real father figure.
His shallow and uncritical academic upbringing has left Barry yet another would-be European intellectual. Once senses a teenager’s delight in destroying constitutional traditions whose deeper meaning he does not understand, rather like the smarmy Tony Blair in Britain.
May 27, 2008 - 8:43 am 32. Benji Conyers:CORRECTION – sorry – previous post should have said ONE senses …. (last sentence).
May 27, 2008 - 8:45 am 33. Kurt:Well it sure sounds like Obama’s legal theories are nothing more than “liberation theology” translated into the realm of jurisprudence. And if that’s the case, it ought to establish clearly that Obama was definitely listening during those 20 years in Wright’s church.
May 27, 2008 - 9:37 am 34. Cascajun » Obama’s views on the Constitution:[...] Rubin examines Obama’s views on the Constitution and the criteria he would use when selecting judges. We know from Obama’s vote opposing the confirmation of now-Chief Justice Roberts that Obama will [...]
May 27, 2008 - 12:35 pm 35. Hold_That_Tiger:What a load of GOP drink the kool-aid pablum. One thing is clear; John McCain, given the chance WILL appoint Politically active Judges to the Court (it is laughable to assert in view of what the Court did in 2000 vis a vis the Gore/Bush ruling that the Conservatives on the Court have not been politically active)…Roe v Wade will be overturned, despite the fact that the majority of Americans, when polled, say that they believe that abortion should be kept safe and legal. Obama has said that he would appoint judges such as Souter (a Bush 41 appointee) and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, both of whom are supposedly “Liberal” but both of whom have ruled with uncommon decency, and with common sense.
May 27, 2008 - 2:46 pm 36. Hold_That_Tiger:BTW, how ironic that some of you denigrate Obama’s Harvard education while your Candidate was “the Goat” at Annapolis…
May 27, 2008 - 2:48 pm 37. Mary in LA:Well, HTT, I say that’s because it takes a lot more guts and backbone to finish military education and training than it does to get a BA/BS at a typical university. At no time during my pursuit of my bachelor’s degree was I ever required to exert myself physically or psychologically, only intellectually. Once outside the academic womb, I learned that the bare intellect makes up only a small part of the worth of a human being, and is useless without other traits such as courage or decisiveness.
The most racially diverse organization in the country? The U.S. military. The best training ground for leadership? The U.S. military. Granted, no one becomes a saint simply by the act of putting the uniform on, but I’ve had the privilege of working for the U.S. military for the last 15 years, and I know “my” guys and gals. They are the best anywhere, even the “goats”.
May 27, 2008 - 4:00 pm 38. B Dubya:I believe that the Obamasiah would deliver the same sort of justice that Bill CLinton did.
May 28, 2008 - 1:35 pm 39. Patriot:Short of the Civil War, I don’t recall any other administration that killed more American civilians than Bill’s (Waco for one).
Neo-Stalinist Democrats are not very tolerant of belief systems they don’t subscribe to. They tend to kill dissent, apparently literally.
Guess we’s all better convert to Black Liberation Theology, and right quick.
“…if you believe in the separation of powers and democracy, according to noted conservative legal scholars…”
Where have these so-called noted conservative legal scholars been while GWB was shredding our Constitution and spitting all over the separation clause these last 7 years? And we have Mr. McCain committing to doing the same.
And Jennifer worries about justice if Obama is elected? Talk about sleeping through a nearly a decade!
For whoever is elected, it is time for Americans to wake up, regain and truly protect the values and promises set form in 1787 and in the years to follow as our most favored document was amended.
May 28, 2008 - 7:42 pm 40. Taras:If Obama is elected, a very violent and bloody civil and foreign war will take place here in our borders, killing millions of people. It would be the Ukraine all over again during WW-II. He’s an incendiary grenade in a magazine loaded with fully armed and fueled missiles. It’s bad enough the last several administrations have spat upon the Constitution and us too, but this guy will kick us when we’re down.
Taras
May 28, 2008 - 8:37 pm 41. Javelin:While I certainly do not want this man to be president, neither would I want most of these cliche, insult and slogan spewing commentors either.
May 28, 2008 - 9:34 pm 42. Javelin:Take B Dubya for example, Neo Stalinists? What garbage. Only a fascist retard could use such slogans like that seriously.
“Obama is advocating lawlessness. He is so intellectually shallow, however, that he is incapable of taking his ideas to their logical conclusion. The guy is utterly unaware that he is literally calling for the end of civilization! The leftist postmodernist approach to the Constitution inevitably leaves us hostage to the whims and caprices of those in power. Might make right. Americans must soon put a halt to this nonsense—or we will inevitable return to an era prehistory savagery.”.. How so Al?
May 28, 2008 - 9:38 pm 43. Redmanfms:This was the first comment here. And I am supposed to take PJ Media and her patrons seriously?
“And I am supposed to take PJ Media and her patrons seriously?”
Feel free not to. I suspect that you wouldn’t take PJ seriously anyway, since the views expressed here don’t fit in with your worldview. You should take note that this conservative-oriented news and opinions site at least allows you and your political brethren to comment and proffer your case, which is a great deal more than can be said about such sites on the left side of the spectrum.
Jun 2, 2008 - 6:45 pm 44. Redmanfms:“Take B Dubya for example, Neo Stalinists? What garbage. Only a fascist retard could use such slogans like that seriously.”
Irony?
Jun 2, 2008 - 6:46 pm 45. last supreme court appointment:[...] Louisville … the ???minor leagues??? for future supreme court appointments, will be filled. …http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/what-kind-of-justice-would-president-obama-mete-out/Supreme Court of Canada – Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe supreme court of Canada formally [...]
Jun 10, 2008 - 11:06 am 46. Pajamas Media » McCain-Lieberman Might Be Just the Ticket:[...] revealed to actually satisfy Republicans?) Moreover, this does not solve the issue of potentially 200 lower court judicial [...]
Jun 20, 2008 - 1:40 am 47. Commentary » Blog Archive » Outrageous:[...] methodology, if not the result, is one utterly in keeping with Obama’s judicial philosophy. (Really.) On this list of helpful things for McCain to do he should add: Explain to voters why [...]
Jun 25, 2008 - 3:42 pm 48. Lost in Translation | Catholic Exchange:[...] Mr. Senior Lecturer in Constitutional Law tried to blunt that critique by saying that Dobson had been “making stuff up,” which is not a smart way to take issue with a man whose web site links to a transcript of the speech you are talking about. Apart from the argument over whether Obama was really just saying that “people of faith” need to speak in a “universal language” that promotes “open and vigorous debate,” the speech and its aftermath are also notable for other reasons. As George Neumayr pointedly observed, Obama mistakenly assumes that secularism is synonymous with reason, while religion is what happens when “mere opinion” ponders Big Questions like “is that all there is?” Both propositions are ahistorical, and both have been refuted many times over. [...]
Jul 1, 2008 - 11:01 pm 49. Commentary » Blog Archive » In Case You Were Confused:[...] Ginsburg, Breyer, and Stevens are Obama’s ideal judges. And we know that he generally wants judges who will roam around the jurisprudential landscape seeking to impose their own personal morality [...]
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:46 am 50. Ignore what he says | Stop Him Now Blog:[...] Ginsburg, Breyer, and Stevens are Obama’s ideal judges. And we know that he generally wants judges who will roam around the jurisprudential landscape seeking to impose their own personal morality [...]
Jul 9, 2008 - 9:42 am 51. Commentary » Blog Archive » Not Just About Abortion:[...] ban on the most extreme and gruesome procedure (partial birth abortion). Rather, he excoriated the Supreme Court for upholding the legislative judgment of Congress. Is there any doubt that if given his way he [...]
Oct 23, 2008 - 3:00 am 52. Commentary » Blog Archive » Which Kind Of Justice?:[...] who aren’t in the fairness business. Unfortunately, he has made crystal clear that he sees no merit (outside an eleventh hour TV interview) in that [...]
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:31 am