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.”
Where did this Carney guy come from? I would like to have his background/history. He acts like a real toe sucker.
How sad that we have come to the point where nobody would be surprised if Obama was involved in that very scenario.
Poor Carney. Don’t cha know he just wants to tell BO to go fix his own damn mess. Instead BO has all these people covering for him and looking like fools for him. It’s really funny.
You said it. There’ll be a special place in hell for the likes of these @#$%&%^#.
Psychopaths, all of them.
Tell big ears we don't understand his commie talk -it's 'FOREIGN' to us.
Where did this Carney guy come from?
. . .
Carney’s a part of the incestuous relationship that’s the “news” media and the democrats.
Miami Herald -> Time Magazine/CNN/ABC -> Joe Biden -> Obama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Carney
Yes, he was using English words that sound just like other English words that have different meanings. I have to admit I didn’t realize before that unprecedented had a synonym that is also it’s antonym.
Carney: Obama remark about Supreme Court was misunderstood
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So....it’s OUR fault! These liberals really DO think we are stupid....don’t they?
Worse. Should not be insulting toe-suckers with the comparison.
[I feel like Rush is that Obama is not idiot and knows exactly what he is doing.]
Correction: Øbama thinks he knows what he is doing. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Absolutely. There is no doubt about it.
They count on 50.1% either being too stupid to understand that he’s lying, or not caring that he’s lying.
“Obama remark about Supreme Court was misunderstood”
So was Rush’s. But that did not stop the leftist aka progressives from demanding his head on a platter.
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