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USA Today/ - News, Ter, 03 de Abril de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)
Obama defends Supreme Court remarks
President Obama defended his comments on the
Supreme Court today, even as Republicans accused
him of trying to intimidate the justices into upholding
the health care law or be attacked as being overtly
political.
"The point I was making is that the Supreme Court is
the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all
of us have to respect it -- but it's precisely because of
that extraordinary power that the court has traditionally
exercised significant restraint and deference to our
duly elected legislature, our Congress," Obama told a
group of newspaper editors.
"And so the burden is on those who would overturn a
law like this," Obama said.
Earlier today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Ky., said Obama's comments on
Monday "reflect not only an attempt to influence the
outcome, but a preview of Democrat attacks to come if
they don't get their way."
Earlier post:
The chattering classes in Washington are still buzzing
about President Obama's comments -- or were they
threats? -- about the pending Supreme Court decision
on the health care case.
The president expressed confidence Monday that the
court would uphold the statute this summer, but also
served warning that an adverse ruling would be viewed
(and criticized) as a political act by the justices.
"I'd just remind conservative commentators that for
years what we've heard is, the biggest problem on the
bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint
-- that an unelected group of people would somehow
overturn a duly constituted and passed law," Obama
said. "Well, this is a good example."
Republican Mitt Romney wondered if Obama was
trying to intimidate the court, but added that "I don't
think that would work."
"I also think it's quite a curious turn of events to start
complaining about an activist court," Romney also told
Fox News.
Other Republicans reacted with more ire.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said "it must be nice living in
a fantasy world where every law you like is
constitutional and every Supreme Court decision you
don't is 'activist.'" He also said it appears that Obama's
comments are part of a political strategy.
"The memo appears to have gone out from the
president's campaign that criticizing the Supreme
Court is going to help his re-election," Hatch said.
"This is disappointing, and is likely to be as successful
as his administration's defense of the unconstitutional
health care law last week."
Some of the court's more conservative justices harshly
questioned the law's key provision, the so-called
individual mandate that requires most Americans to
buy health insurance or pay a fine.
Some of the president's supporters, such as Rep.
James Clyburn, D-S.C., have suggested that Obama
make the Supreme Court a campaign issue if it rules
against health care.
A decision is expected in June.
Obama wouldn't be the first president to tangle with the
high court in public. It's been tried by presidents
ranging from Andrew Jackson to Franklin D.
Roosevelt, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan.
Yet the court -- an independent branch of government,
after all -- has its own unique powers.
Even some supporters of the health care law
expressed dismay over the president's comments.
Ruth Marcus, a columnist for The Washington Post,
said Obama's description of the court as "an unelected
group of people" left her cold, Marcus wrote. "I would
lament a ruling striking down the individual mandate,
but I would not denounce it as conservative justices
run amok.
"Listening to the arguments and reading the transcript,
the justices struck me as a group wrestling with a
legitimate, even difficult, constitutional question,"
Marcus wrote.
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