{"id":27278,"date":"2012-04-06T07:29:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-06T12:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=27278"},"modified":"2014-02-19T11:04:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T17:04:00","slug":"heres-a-flashback-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=27278","title":{"rendered":"Here’s A Flashback For You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember back in 2008, when liberals would stare all starry-eyed into space with that look teenagers used to get when Leif Garrett or Nick Carter appeared in Tiger Beat: “Oooh, Barack Obama was a constitutional lawyer! \u00a0That’s an ideal <\/em>background for a President!”<\/p>\n

At best, it’s irrelevant; a President needs to know about as much about Constitutional Law as a good cop does. \u00a0He’s got people for the complicated stuff.<\/p>\n

At worst? \u00a0It’s one of the worst possible backgrounds for a President; the last think you want to do is turn lawyers loose around the law with nearly unlimited power.<\/p>\n

Thom Lambert – a lawyer and former law student of President Obama – knows better<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Imagine if you picked up your morning paper to read that one of your astronomy professors had publicly questioned whether the earth, in fact, revolves around the sun. Or suppose that one of your economics professors was quoted as saying that consumers would purchase more gasoline if the price would simply rise. Or maybe your high school math teacher was publicly insisting that 2 + 2 = 5. You\u2019d be a little embarrassed, right? You\u2019d worry that your colleagues and friends might begin to question your astronomical, economic, or mathematical literacy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(That’s one of the things I always wondered about people who went to law schools or “elite” universities; the idea that the institution one attends defines one’s personality, or indeed personhood. \u00a0To the extent it does, it’s in the sense of say “Hey, look at me, I went to Cornell, Go Tigers” – or, for that matter, “I’m qualified for a job because <\/em>I went to an Ivy League school” – at in appropriate times).<\/p>\n

(But I digress).<\/p>\n

Now you know how I felt this morning when I read in the Wall Street Journal that my own constitutional law professor had stated that it would be \u201can unprecedented, extraordinary step\u201d for the Supreme Court to \u201coverturn[] a law [i.e., the Affordable Care Act] that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.\u201d Putting aside the \u201cstrong majority\u201d nonsense (the deeply unpopular Affordable Care Act got through the Senate with the minimum number of votes needed to survive a filibuster and passed 219-212 in the House), saying that it would be \u201cunprecedented\u201d and \u201cextraordinary\u201d for the Supreme Court to strike down a law that violates the Constitution is like saying that Kansas City is the capital of Kansas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Democrats, presiding as they have over four years of rot and decay, have switched to the “say what you’d like <\/em>the truth to be and hope people buy it” school of public relations. \u00a0History shows it’s not a bad choice, albeit it’s still wrong…<\/p>\n

Thus, a Wall Street Journal editorial queried this about the President who \u201cfamously taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago\u201d: \u201c[D]id he somehow not teach the historic case of Marbury v. Madison?\u201d<\/p>\n

I actually know the answer to that question. It\u2019s no (well, technically yes\u2026he didn\u2019t). President Obama taught \u201cCon Law III\u201d at Chicago. Judicial review, federalism, the separation of powers \u2014 the old \u201cstructural Constitution\u201d stuff \u2014 is covered in \u201cCon Law I\u201d (or at least it was when I was a student). Con Law III covers the Fourteenth Amendment. (Oddly enough, Prof. Obama didn\u2019t seem too concerned about \u201can unelected group of people\u201d overturning a \u201cduly constituted and passed law\u201d when we were discussing all those famous Fourteenth Amendment cases \u2013 Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, Romer v. Evans, etc.) Of course, even a Con Law professor focusing on the Bill of Rights should know that the principle of judicial review has been alive and well since 1803, so I still feel like my educational credentials have been tarnished a bit by the President\u2019s \u201cunprecedented, extraordinary\u201d remarks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing.<\/p>\n

And then get a friend to come out to the polls to vote The Light Worker out of office this fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember back in 2008, when liberals would stare all starry-eyed into space with that look teenagers used to get when Leif Garrett or Nick Carter appeared in Tiger Beat: “Oooh, Barack Obama was a constitutional lawyer! \u00a0That’s an ideal background for a President!” At best, it’s irrelevant; a President needs to know about as much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,82],"tags":[282],"class_list":["post-27278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-president-obama","category-scotus","tag-idiot-elite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27278"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41918,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27278\/revisions\/41918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}