Justice Alito’s “Joe Wilson Moment”
Jan 28th, 2010 | 45 responses
AMERICAblog’s John Aravosis was one of the first to point it out, in his SOTU live-blogging:
Alito shakes heading, mouthing “not true,” as Obama says recent Supreme Court decision will let lobbyists and corporations own our elections. Highly inappropriate for Alito to do this. You’ll notice the Sup Ct doesn’t even clap when the president enters. They are not supposed to respond to anything, lest it show bias.
John called it “Alito’s ‘You Lie!’ moment.”
There is quite a bit of commentary about it at Memeorandum.
The complete text of the SOTU is here.
I will be doing more SOTU reaction blogging tomorrow when my computer is not taking 10 minutes to execute every command. It actually took me about two hours to write this post, but I was determined to get something up about tonight’s speech before everyone had covered every possible angle.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
45 Responses to “Justice Alito’s “Joe Wilson Moment””
Well, it's Alito. He probably eats with his mouth open and elbows on the table. He is one of those guys that thinks they are beyond social etiquette. We should just be happy that he graced Obama with his presence.
Alito? Acting like a toolbox? Naaaaaah!
Alito is telling the truth to a lying p.o.s. Alito is smarter than anyone who ever posted on this thread.
I thought taking the Supreme Court to task in a SOTU address with them sitting directly in front of him was inconsistent with the conciliatory tone of the address. Alito's quiet reaction can not be compared to Wilson's rude outburst from last year,
It doesn't say much for the President to trash the members of the POTUS over a recent decision when they are sitting right in front of him and not supposed to react. It's even worse when the President gets his facts wrong when he does it.
The NY Times describes the moment charitably for the President:
Indeed, Mr. Obama’s description of the holding of the case was imprecise.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/27…
Others were less forgiving. Politico quotes conservative legal scholar Bradley Smith:
“The President’s swipe at the Supreme Court was a breach of decorum, and represents the worst of Washington politics — scapegoating ‘special interest’ bogeymen for all that ails Washington in attempt to silence the diverse range of speakers in our democracy
http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/0110…
President Obama's actions in calling out the members of the SCOTUS to their face with a factually shaky statement when they were not in a position to respond will be applauded by those who opposed the Court's decision and Alito's reaction applauded, or at least excused by those favoring it.
In Alito's defense, at least he did not plan his part in advance.
I don't think anyone was arguing Alito is not smart. He's forgotten more about law than the rest of us will ever know.
However, conservatives should recognize they have their own “activist judges” who wear their biases openly and wonder if that is a good thing.
Lit3Bolt
“I don't think anyone was arguing Alito is not smart. He's forgotten more about law than the rest of us will ever know.”
I think that's the problem. Alito forgot a lot of law when he overturned 100 years of precedent based upon poorly reasoned, activist bias.
If money is speech, then corporate speech is theft.
I believe this is the one time per year that any poltician can call out the SCOTUS while they are in the room and the general public is watching. It needed to be done. Now maybe we can move on with amending the constitution so the same foreign corps that fund terrorism cannot influence our elections.
Shannonlee nailed it. Alito is an ideologue and a poor defender of the USC. There are few enough opportunities to call people like that out given their high level of insulation and low accountability. This is one of the most pathetic excuses for a supreme court we've had the misfortune to be saddled with in a long time. The constitution is not a partisan document, and neither should the body be which is trusted to enforce it.
Since we're supposed to be adhering to a newspaper like standard on this site, how is calling the POTUS a “lying p.o.s.” elevating the tone?
Moderators, let's get real. This shouldn't be tolerated.
He changed 100 years of law because he is a partisan jackass that’s hates working people. Corporations are not people. Corporations are property. What the SC did was give corporations more power than people. It's not brain surgery, it was a simple POLITICAL act in re-interpreting the constitution to fit a political agenda. President Obama’s Legal credential is pretty darn impressive also. Somebody has been lobbying the supreme court on the sly. Simple as that.
The changing of this law assures the people at the top of any organization, whether it be a labor based organization or a corporation, INORDINATE weight in expressing their opinion.
Let's say my corporation's directors hold a political view contrary to my own. As a citizen, I have a small amount of money, time and influence. A major corporation has LOTS of time, money, lobbyists and influence. They could easily trump, overrun, or nullify my contribution to the political arena by sheer weight.
The views of this corporation are the views of a very few people, the ones making decisions at the top of the ladder, not of the worker bees, necessarily.
I have to to get an explanation of just how this ruling improves the political process. In an already money saturated environment, how is throwing even more money into the pen a good thing? We should be seeking to suck some of that money out of the process, not inject even more in.
It's hardly any secret the supreme court has been packed with right-wing ideologues. How much more evidence could there possibly be that a good part of america no longer has any use for either democracy or the constitution? Those Americans (independents?) who are still capable of opening their eyes had better start taking a good look around. The reasons we are having so much trouble in this country are multiple, but many of them can be traced directly to a continuing, deepley entrenched, contentious, and dishonest political infection. I'm not talking about traditional republicans here; I'm talking about the kind of weakminded political fodder that has been allowed to take root in the tradition of demagogues like Rush Limbaugh, Joseph McCarthy, Glenn Beck and that entire celebration of low standards. We didn't get where we are now by accident. Turn on your think-o-laters people.
Shannonlee, yes!
Hi DaMav -
Rather than re-writing in reply to your comment, I'm re-posting something I put on another thread …with apologies for taking the lazy way.
“FDR proposed a court stacking plan to intimidate the Supremes into discontinuing the practice of finding New Deal legislation unconstitutional. Presidential criticism is not new, and, in FDR's case, it worked.
Multiple “conservative” presidents have also criticized court decisions, particularly Roe v. Wade. Sarah Palin was asked which court decisions she disagreed with during the '08 campaign. Many have ridden the wave of religious “base” support to multiple election wins on the promise to “change the Court” and get Roe overturned.
Presidents and candidates criticizing Court decisions is part of our political tradition. Calling out Obama for criticizing a Court decision, …, is disingenuous at best.”
I have yet to get an explanation of just how this ruling improves the political process.
The court is not set up to improve the political process, it's set up to interpret constitutional law.
I actually disagree with the Supreme Court's decision although I am sympathetic to the first amendment ramifications. Whether the ruling makes the process better or fails to protect the little guy is really immaterial though, since those are not the functions of the court.
the conciliatory tone of the address”
That's interesting, I found the speech to be more confrontational, spiced with nuggets of conciliatory platitudes.
In Alito's defense, at least he did not plan his part in advance”
Agreed.
Yup.
Calling out Obama for criticizing a Court decision, …, is disingenuous at best.”
Sorry, I disagree with the court's ruling and O's lack of manners/decorum. O has already, and frequently, publicly criticized the ruling and there was no need to so during the SOTUS. What are we a banana republic?
Same for R and D senators and house members, STFU.
This was a ruling that overturned 100 years of precedented law, and somehow it's DEMOCRATS that get painted with the “activist judge that legislates from the bench” brush.
What hooey!
The Constitution is a living, breathing document, not something ossified in the 18th century and passed on unchanged. Morally, the SCOTUS DOES have the obligation to anticipate what is beneficial to our political process and what is not. None of us live in a moral vacuum.
“He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
He said the ruling was crap and that Congress must do something to fix it. I believe that fits in perfectly within the USC.
Congress must do something to fix it”
A time and place for everything. It was a populist jab. If he wants congress to do anything (choke) all he had to do was hand Nancy a note and email Reid.
If we can't have anything else, can't we have a little decorum (how old fashioned, I know)?
I've seen nobody say that the Supreme Court cannot be criticized. The issue being raised is whether it breaks protocol to use the State of the Union to harangue them to their faces.
This is, after all, a coequal branch of government. If it is a breach of protocol that one of the Justices reacted, is it not also a breach of protocol that the President provoked that reaction?
A teacher may bring a student in and tell them to remain silent while rebuked. The teacher will have far less success demanding such behavior from an equal.
This could be settled if some scholar came forth with prior examples of a President attacking a decision of the justices in person during the State of the Union.
And as I mentioned before, according to our Constitution, that was the time and place.
DaMav,
Agreed that some research would be helpful. For example, did FDR present his court stacking scheme, or advocate for it, or criticize the Supremes in a State of the Union address …I don't know off the top of my head, but it sure seems possible. Has any Republican president called for legislation or Constitutional Amendment designed to overrule Roe V Wade, or criticized that decision in a State of the Union…I don't know off the top of my head, but it sure seems possible.
To me, this is pretty much a tempest in a teapot. I'm not aware of any handbook on what a president can or cannot say in a State of the Union address, or any handbook on what a member of the Supremes can silently mouth or not mouth while listening. What Wilson did, in actively disrupting the speech to the joint session last year, probably crosses the line. I'm not sure anything that happened last night did.
Btw, on the decision itself, some of the harshest criticism has come not from the president but from Sandra Day O'Connor, whom Alito replaced on the Court.
Decorum?
From the party falling all over itself to excuse Joe Wilson?
LOL. Really, you should try again.
Congress must do something to fix it”
nonsense squared.
Joe Wilson?”
Read my lips. joe Wilson was wrong. O should not emulate him.
Yay, Shannon!
Since I made reference to Sandra Day O'connor's criticism of Citizens United, here is some of what she said. To put it in context, her concern centers on judicial elections, common in most states.
“She [O'Connor] added that last week’s decision was likely to create “an increasing problem for maintaining an independent judiciary.”
“In invalidating some of the existing checks on campaign spending,” Justice O’Connor said, “the majority in Citizens United has signaled that the problem of campaign contributions in judicial elections might get considerably worse and quite soon.”
In last year’s Caperton decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a State Supreme Court justice in West Virginia who had been elected with the help of millions of dollars in campaign spending from a coal executive should have disqualified himself from a case involving the executive’s company.
“These two cases,” Justice O’Connor said, referring to Citizens United and Caperton, “should be a warning to states that still choose their judges by popular election.”
Then she sketched out what the future might hold.
“We can anticipate that labor unions and trial lawyers, for instance, might have the financial means to win one particular state judicial election,” she said. “And maybe tobacco firms and energy companies have enough to win the next one.
“And if both sides unleash their campaign spending monies without restrictions, then I think mutually-assured destruction is the most likely outcome.””
Credit, New York Times.
Obama was whining about the Supreme Court's legitimate ruling (as opposed to the activism libs and Dems support and actually defend), protecting the constitutional right to free speech. His whining was in poor taste. Openly expressing the wish to work with Congress to subvert free speech rights was an additional insult to Americans (though those to whom he was particularly appealing may not care, or perversely may like or want what he said he wanted).
“It's even worse when the President gets his facts wrong when he does it.”
That's OK. First, what matters are the _feelings_. Second, as many in the media and in academia, as well as government, would say, the facts aren't as important as that the right _message_ be sent.
Comparisons of Joe Wilson to Obama are ridiculous in the extreme. As for “decorum”, how much decorum was being observed when the right side of the aisle sat on their hands when Obama said that tax incentives should be removed for corporations who move out of the country and should be increased for companies who exanded here? Duh.
Ahh, the Living Constitution, what an incorrect idea. The Constitution lives as much as a rock does. What the Constitution is, is flexible. The meaning of the Constitution may change because the document is ambiguous, and thus flexible; it does not, however, live. Its meaning does not change with time. We as a society do not have any effect on its meaning, except in positing new challenges to it. But the Constitution means, on its face, what it said at the time it was drafted.
Regarding the 100-year-breach, actual lawyers, a group I hope to join in less than a year, have noted that the White House has, in its attempt to be populist, imprecisely stated, and it is apparent to me, misled, the General Populace. This was a narrow ruling designed to remove an unconstitutional portion of a piece of legislation, and did not overturn 100 years of precedent, and indeed did not overturn even one scintilla of precedent. It merely excised a piece of legislation that was unconstitutional, and had not yet faced a challenge under the case or controversy requirement.
That's right. President Obama was a Professor of Constitutional law for many years. Alito and Scalia are both openly biased and legislate from the bench. This ruling is such a flagrant disregard for the only real power we have as taxpayers and citizens of the USA…that is to vote and elect our government. I suspect that many groups will be fighting this narrow minded and idiotic ruling. The POTUS was signaling that a battle is coming.
IF the USC isn't “living” then neither are we living. The USC is a wonderful foundation, but it also accomodates change, even constitutionally.
Once again tidbits, you have found the way to agreement. Tempest in a teapot it is!
Thanks DM…same back…though we still can respectfully disagree on the case itself.
“IF the USC isn't 'living' then neither are we.”
False statement. The Constitution cannot be twisted to mean whatever someone wants it to mean.
Those who profess the “living” myth (typically fans of leftist judicial activism) deserve their relatives' wills, or contracts they have (perhaps rental agreements with their tenants, who want to pay much less, or nothing at all, or utilities or service companies, who want ten times more money suddenly) “reinterpreted.” Those things are as “living” and malleable and distortable as the Constitution, or anything else where someone dislikes the color red in a law, or wants green, and says the law says or should “mean” green now.
This has been explained numerous times already, in fact, and shouldn't require explanation again.
“This ruling is such a flagrant disregard for the only real power we have as taxpayers and citizens of the USA…that is to vote and elect our government.”
You may want the power to be as you want it to be, and so have others for at least a century or so. The problem here is how you go about establishing or protecting that power. The case in question identified the law at issue as censoring political speech, which is what it was doing. The effect of the law is at the heart of the problem with the law; it's a separate question to address how corporations and other parties can be legitimately regulated about, or excluded from, political activities of other kinds. (At issue here was elections, but elections don't constitute the only realm in which corps and other parties may have their activities regulated, or even be excluded. It just has to be a legitimate method, with legitimate effects.)
“I suspect that many groups will be fighting this narrow minded and idiotic ruling. The POTUS was signaling that a battle is coming.”
Actually, many believe it was too “broad” a rule, though it was criticized as being made through blinders.
We'll believe there's action when we see it. And, it has to be legitimate; I smell possible subversion, or coming as close to it as these Dems can get away with doing. In any event, there are remedies, including what really amounts to the constitutional-legislative “nuclear option,” in this case, if you recall how judicial review (and any risk of activism) can be forestalled:
“In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned,
the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact,
with such exceptions, <= ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: note in particular
and under such regulations
as the Congress shall make.”
Ok then, when is it a good time for members of the Supreme Court to appear before the national media like say the talk show circuit or at a press conference and criticize the President before the people?
I mean, fair is fair and the branches of government are supposed to be co-equal right?
Imagine the uproar that would be caused if say Scalia held a press conference and condemned the democratic agenda as Unconstiutional and then hit the talk show circuit appearing as many times as Obma does.
Be sure that you are a independent or you will be exposed.
Joe Wilson was wrong!! Every objective, fair and intellectually honest human being on earth agreed.
The President was wrong! and like Wilson showed what a “ass” can look like.
Let's see why he was wrong. #1 He is a arrogant jerk? Yes #2 the 1st ammendment, “freedom of sppech” every heard of it Harvard grad? #3 the consitution, see answer #2, #4 100 yr law? ,no. 1990 law, check you math skills, #5 You want respect but the rules do not apply to you, Thanks Pres. Chavez. All wrong, what happen to change and hope? it looks like it was taken over by, false pride, and selective hearing/intellegence. 90% wrong & what a jerk this guy is .
Just a FYI. CHeck your facts and try to not prove you don't know what your talking about. The President was wrong on almost everyoen of his points. This has become a distrurbing tend along with partisan on this website that call themselves independents or moderates. In short the facts do not support you or the president and neither does history. Better luck next time.