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.”
Playing the “you’re too stupid to understand what he meant” card.
What?
The Brilliant Won (intended) doesn’t know how to communicate accurately despite his advanced degree in constitutional law?
Yeah, I guess the Dummycrats will fall for this.
Typical 0bama lie. We mere mortals just aren’t ‘smart enough to understand’ his utter brilliance.
FUBO. We know exactly what you meant.
Why would a dictator regret anything?
Poor thing...nobody ever really understands tyrant-wannabes.
Particularly as they get closer to achieving their statist, totalitarian goals.
I mean look at Lennin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il, etc., etc.
Fact is, all too many of us understand him completely.
THE MAN WHO DESPISES AMERICA
http://www.jeffhead.com/obama-time.htm
Now he's backpedaling like an All-Pro NFL cornerback, trying to undo the damage. When they trot out this Carney jack@ss to tell reporters that they "misunderstood" something they heard with their own ears just a day or two earlier, then you know Obama has a serious problem.
I mean really...has anyone ever come forth to say that they were a student when our great leader supposedly taught AS A LECTURER. I think he got paid to be a lecturer but never showed. He was off sniffing crack somewhere or using a pipe. This creature (mr affirmnative ac tion him self) is an unknown and a worthless sack.
I mean really...has anyone ever come forth to say that they were a student when our great leader supposedly taught AS A LECTURER. I think he got paid to be a lecturer but never showed. He was off sniffing crack somewhere or using a pipe. This creature (mr affirmnative ac tion him self) is an unknown and a worthless sack.
If I may be so bold as to modify your excellent statement a bit.... What we really have is an unprecedented illegal alien in the White House.
He is still a citizen of Indonesia without even so much as a green card.
That makes him look good to his illegal voters and base and the Supremes look like they’re really trying to find a way to do something about the healthcare fiasco.
Robert Gibbs grew tired of doing the W.O.R.M., Now it’s Carneys turn to spin What Obama Really Meant! Bet he’s already getting sick of WORM’s!
He understands it, doesn't like it, and wants to disregard it.
They must have Baghdad Bob sequestered somewhere in the White House coaching Carney before these performances. Although I think even Baghdad Bob would have said, “Dude, they’re not going to believe that!”, with Carny’s latest line of bovine excrement.
"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." -- Tom Lehrer, 1973"Political satire was stabbed in the back, hung, drawn, quartered, and buried in an unmarked grave, when Barack Obama became President." -- Dayglored, 2012
Honest to God, John, I had to look at the byline and credits of this article three times before I was willing to accept that it wasn't you under an alias.
The Executive and the Judicial branches have clashed multiple times historically but unless both Houses stand behind the President,he can’t ignore the Supremes......not on this one anyway.
This is called Cleaning Off The Fan.
Translation:
All the other kids at school do it.
Lyin SOB
All of them
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.