Posted on 04/04/2012 2:30:56 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Carney: Obama remark about Supreme Court was misunderstood By Jonathan Easley - 04/04/12 04:25 PM ET
In an occasionally testy exchange with reporters, White House press secretary Jay Carney defended President Obama’s remark that it would be “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to overturn the administration’s healthcare law, saying the comment had been misunderstood.
Speaking at a Rose Garden news conference on Monday, Obama weighed in on the matter for the first time since last week’s high court hearings that left many Democrats fearful that the five conservative judges would band together to strike down his signature domestic achievement.
“Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” the president said.
Republicans pounced on the remarks, citing more than 150 cases in which the Supreme Court had overturned an act of Congress.
On Tuesday, Obama said he meant the Supreme Court hadn’t overturned a law that involved the Commerce Clause, as the healthcare law does, in the last 80 years — since the New Deal.
Carney defended that take at a White House press briefing on Wednesday, when asked if the president regretted his initial remarks.
“Not at all,” Carney said. “As I’ve said a number of times now, the president was making the unremarkable observation about 80 years of Supreme Court history.”
When asked if that meant the president was now clarifying his remarks, Carney shot back, “Only because a handful of people didn’t understand what he was referring to.”
“The fact that it would be unprecedented in the modern era of the Supreme Court, since the New Deal era, for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation passed by Congress, designed to deal with a matter of economic importance like our healthcare system,” Carney continued.
“That’s what would be unprecedented about it. He did not suggest, did not mean and did not suggest that it would be unprecedented for the court to rule that a law was unconstitutional. That’s what the Supreme Court is there to do. But it has under the Commerce Clause deferred to Congress’s authority on matters of national economic importance.”
Critics blasted the president for his comments, saying his remarks were an attempt to influence the outcome of the court’s ruling and claiming that the president attempted to diminish the justices by referring to them as “unelected.”
Carney said that was not meant as a swipe against the Supreme Court, and that the president respects the power of the judicial branch.
“Nobody would ever contend in his office, and he certainly is not contending, that the Supreme Court doesn’t have as its right and responsibility the ability to overturn laws passed by Congress as unconstitutional,” Carney said. “He was referring to 85 years of Supreme Court precedent with matters like the one under consideration, and it’s maybe fun to pretend otherwise, but everyone here knows what he meant.”
“[The president] was a law professor,” Carney added. “He understands constitutional law and constitutional precedent and the role of the Supreme Court.”
What we really have is an unprecedented alien in the White House.
Misunderstood my Arse.
It was the way he acted like it was unnecessary to be tested by the courts that shows how arrogant he is.
Up is down, black is white, North is South.
Orwell hit it on the head. As did Carroll:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - - that’s all.”
Don’t believe your lying ears.....
This is the biggest BS president America has ever had. This ignorant communists is crazy.
It is always that we stupid people just do not understand. He must get so frustrated, thinking that out of the hundreds of millions of us, he is the only smart one.
From the great orator???? Surely not....
Obama does not even satisfy requirements for POTUS.
How many have been killed already to cover this up.
What we really have is an unprecedented alien moron in the White House.
What we have in the White House is a traitor.
Fast and Furious, GUILTY.
Illegally attacking Libya: GUILTY
Race-baiting community organizer: Obama wants riots in the streets from his "base." Whether it's the Wall Street BS or racist like "Rev" Jackson, Obama can only win if America looses.
Golly, all he had to say what that he “misspoke.” But that would admit that THIS president always makes himself clear. If we don’t understand, it is our fault.
Blahblahblah
It is unprecedented in US history to have a wannabe communist mudslime dictator in our White House.
Fixed it.
I wonder when the lying is going to get to Carney.
Once again it’s our fault. We misunderstood. He thought we would understand.
We failed to understand because he’s just too damned smart for us to follow.
So actually in a way it was his fault for overestimating our intelligence.
To be safe I’m going to e-mail my apology to the White Hut for being so stupid.
Why didn’t he just say it was George W. Bush’s fault? That seems to work for everything else.
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