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Carney: Obama remark about Supreme Court was misunderstood
The Hill ^

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.”


TOPICS: Breaking News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: carney; democrats; obama; obamacare; scotus; youlie
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To: Sub-Driver

"..here fido clean up over here...fido come here clean here....fido fido, come quickly,clean here....fido fidoooo...this guys leaves more piles of s*** wherever he goes"

21 posted on 04/04/2012 2:44:16 PM PDT by Doogle (((USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated)))
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To: Sub-Driver

Hey Carney, it that the fastest you can spin? Ain’t gettin’ it!


22 posted on 04/04/2012 2:45:08 PM PDT by upchuck (Need is not an acceptable lifestyle choice; dependent is not a career. ~ Dr. Tim Nerenz)
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To: Sub-Driver
Carney: Obama remark about Supreme Court was misunderstood

PATENT BULLSHIT!! Comrade "O's" little sock puppet has a nose at least a foot long...maybe longer. WADDAPUTZ!!

23 posted on 04/04/2012 2:47:10 PM PDT by GoldenPup
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To: Sub-Driver

What BS!


24 posted on 04/04/2012 2:49:11 PM PDT by expat2
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To: Sub-Driver

No Jay...The President simply lied.....repeatedly!
Again!


25 posted on 04/04/2012 2:49:29 PM PDT by G Larry (We are NOT obliged to carry the snake in our pocket and then dismiss the bites as natural behavior.)
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To: Sub-Driver
Am I the only person on earth that knew he was referring to the Commerce Clause?

/sarc

26 posted on 04/04/2012 2:51:59 PM PDT by PosterPoster (Medicare doesn't cover ammo either. Now that's really fluked up!)
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To: Sub-Driver

Yeah right Carney. Explain it to the Judge.


27 posted on 04/04/2012 2:54:37 PM PDT by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
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To: Sub-Driver
WTF is there to mis-understand ...

He was being petty and petulant - much like a whining child screaming, "I want my MayPo ..."

28 posted on 04/04/2012 2:54:51 PM PDT by Lmo56 (If ya wanna run with the big dawgs - ya gotta learn to piss in the tall grass ...)
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To: Sub-Driver
....overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” the president said.

Yep, a regular old blowout! /s

It's amazing that these slimes can look at themselves in the mirror and live with themselves without total self disregard via shame.

29 posted on 04/04/2012 2:57:55 PM PDT by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
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To: Sub-Driver

It was totally understood. That is why Obama and Carney are backpedaling as fast as they can.


30 posted on 04/04/2012 2:57:55 PM PDT by righttackle44 (I may not be much, but I raised a United States Marine.)
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To: Sub-Driver
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.

Sure, if you ignore United States v. Morrison and United States v. Lopez.

31 posted on 04/04/2012 2:59:00 PM PDT by RagingBull (Talent does what it can; genius does what it must)
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To: Sub-Driver
Have patience, please.

Obummer is always misunderstood because English is his second language.

Swahili is his native tongue.

32 posted on 04/04/2012 2:59:35 PM PDT by bunkerhill7 (Swahili WH slime ?? Who knew?)
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To: Sub-Driver

Obama is nothing but a ghetto organizing Flim-Flam Man. Obama would make a great Carnival shill.

This pathological liar should have already been impeached.... and he should be doing prison time, NOT charting the course of 300 million lives.

There is nothing honorable within him or about him.


33 posted on 04/04/2012 3:00:53 PM PDT by Gator113 (** President Newt Gingrich-"Our beloved republic deserves nothing less." ~Just livin' life, my way~)
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To: Sub-Driver

How can the Great Orator and Eloquent Communicator possibly be misunderstood?


34 posted on 04/04/2012 3:01:54 PM PDT by Right Wing Assault (Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)
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To: Sub-Driver

Go ahead. Say it, Carney. You’ve proven today that you’re a fully-qualified propagandist. Now you can say it in public instead of doing it in front of your bathroom mirror: “Heil Obama!”


35 posted on 04/04/2012 3:02:51 PM PDT by arasina (So there.)
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To: Sub-Driver

It was not ‘misunderstood’ or Carney wouldn’t be out doing damage control.


36 posted on 04/04/2012 3:03:00 PM PDT by TomGuy
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To: Sub-Driver

So what he really meant was ‘not recently precedented’.


37 posted on 04/04/2012 3:04:04 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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To: KoRn
The liberal hacks like Mo Dowd understood exactly what he meant. He only changed his tune when he felt the backlash. These people are pathetic.
38 posted on 04/04/2012 3:04:23 PM PDT by peeps36 (America is being destroyed by filthy traitors in the political establishment)
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To: Sub-Driver

Yeah, because we’re all too stupid to understand the brilliant mind that is the kenyan.


39 posted on 04/04/2012 3:06:21 PM PDT by Student0165 ("If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." Barack Hussein Obama)
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To: Sub-Driver
“Only because a handful of people didn’t understand what he was referring to.”

Yeah, a handful of several hundred million people, including at least one federal judge.

40 posted on 04/04/2012 3:07:16 PM PDT by Right Wing Assault (Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)
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