What's absurd is the idea that courts can be authoritative even when they are powerless. Nine old farts in pajamas can't make the President do anything he doesn't believe he should do. Normally the people respect the Supreme Court and are inclined to accept it's judgments. President's have to be careful about crossing the court. But that doesn't mean there is never again going to be a situation in which the Court is on the wrong side of the public and the President can go his own way with impunity. In fact the courts have squandered most of their goodwill in the last few decades; crossing them is getting more thinkable, not less so.
Of course the only check on presidential power is political. Welcome to
republican government. That's in the nature of the beast. And by the way, Marbury doesn't hold what you apparently think it holds.
"And by the way, Marbury doesn't hold what you apparently think it holds." I'm not sure what's greater - your arrogance, or the fallibility of your clairvoyant power.
What I know with respect to the central legal holding of Marbury, is that Marshall's opinion establishes, for the first time in American jurisprudence, the principle of judicial review.
My point, was that it wasn't (your words) "just a court case", but in fact an event that quite literally changed the course of American history.