Take A Look, Professor Obama

The President of the United States is apparently unfamiliar with one of the items in the picture, and refuses to salute the other. The latter is an insult, but not recognizing the document pictured is both appalling and frightening. What is wrong with this man? Pretty much everything, but let's concentrate on the Constitution.

Obama is allegedly a super-intellect. Columbia, Harvard Law, Law Review, and professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. This proves one of two things. Either academic degrees and titles mean nothing anymore, or degrees, titles and cushy law school positions are easy to get if you know the right people. Since there is conveniently no paper trail to follow, we'll just have to take his word for it. Alternatively, we could simply look at his latest statement about an issue of constitutional importance.

The United States Supreme Court recently handed down a decision that Professor/President Obama didn't like. The court held that a portion of the McCain-Feingold campaign-financing law is now inoperative as an unconstitutional abridgment of First Amendment rights of free speech and the press. The portion stricken prevented corporations from paying for or sponsoring specific political ads favoring named candidates or political parties. It set limits on how much money a corporation could spend on any election. However, the restriction on corporations and unions giving money directly to candidates or their campaign committees or coordinating their efforts remains in place. I don't much like that, but as I said in an earlier post, "I'll take what I can get" and hope for more later. The decision also removed restrictions on corporate and union "issue ads" which were previously forbidden within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.

Obama called this an attack on free speech. He angrily made a public speech saying that he needs "to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires no less." He wants Congress to pass laws which will re-impose the restrictions on the evil corporations. By his definition, the people who run unions are genuine people, and those who run corporations are phony people. "People" includes labor unions in his thinking, but it doesn't include corporations. Never mind that the union bosses spend up to 60% of the dues coerced out of their unwilling members to cover political activities specifically forbidden by law under Beck v. Communications Workers, but a corporation, not being "the people," cannot spend a dime of funds willingly given to them by the investors. Unions and corporations are both legal entities, not "persons," but that recognition by the Supreme Court leveling the playing field doesn't sit well with Obama. Given his lefty Democratic credentials (those are real), Obama can attack "big business" but dares not attack "big labor."

Most of the mainstream press is in bed with Obama. They are also supposed to be for-profit corporations, but many are losing money, filing for bankruptcy, downsizing, or merging. They've been given tremendous leeway by the IRS and the Holder Justice Department on the ground that they are also news organizations and exempt from McCain-Feingold. Most of the for-profit news corporations that are actually making profits are owned by Rupert Murdoch and Forbes. But while the New York Times loses money, it also editorializes for Democrat causes. So it's treated as news, and doesn't trigger McCain-Feingold. Murdoch's publications which lean Republican, on the other hand, are being checked out by the IRS and possibly the Justice Department. In order to preserve the failing pro-Democrat publications and McCain-Feingold at the same time, Obama once proposed that the already money-losing publications re-register as nonprofits to avoid tax penalties and fines for violating the campaign finance acts. That's good for Obama and the Democrats, but I'm not so sure about the damned fool common shareholders who expected to earn money on their investment in The New York Times. The same thing can be said of broadcast television and cable channels (particularly MSNBC).

The megacorporations give far more money to the Democratic Party than to the Republicans, but Obama knows he can wink in the direction of those corporate boards during his socialist/populist/know-nothing attacks since they will be rewarded with special deals later. All he has to do is throw government contracts and special tax breaks at companies that participate in his left wing policies, and they're as meek as lambs while being led to the slaughter. General Electric Corporation alone will save many millions of dollars and earn millions more by joining in some of Obama's silliest "green initiatives." This is called "honesty and transparency in government" and "sticking it to big business."

In order to bring along the corporate sheep that choose not to be slaughtered, Obama wants to undo the Supreme Court decision. There's one small problem which professor of constitutional law Obama should know, but doesn't. The limitation was declared to be a violation of First Amendment constitutional protections, not a law which can be rewritten and reworded. His appointee in ignorance, Justice Sotomayor, agrees with genius Obama, but she was outvoted on the court. She hasn't read the Constitution either. Both have the leftist concept that ours is a government which is a respecter of persons, not of laws. That's backwards, of course. The court's ruling essentially says that the government was unconstitutionally regulating the content of political ads indirectly by determining who was allowed to run those ads, how much they could spend, and when they could run them.

Either Obama is a legal ignoramus, or he wants to end a precedent set by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison in 1803, and one followed by every Congress and president since that time (save one exception starring Andrew Jackson). In the words of the Marbury court, "it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." That suited the liberals just fine from the Warren Court through the Rehnquist Court. The Roberts Court has a five to four majority which says that the court is fully empowered to interpret the Constitution, but not to rewrite it or find ways around it.

So now we have Professor/President Obama proposing to tell Justice Marshall and all the subsequent courts which followed Marshall's opinion that Obama's The One, and Congress and the Supreme Court better recognize that and do what he says. I've always called this "the arrogance of ignorance." As attorney and blogger Ann Althouse asks, "why would a law professor oppose a Supreme Court decision on a matter of constitutional law and not respect the authority of the Court and honor our system?" It's a rhetorical question on her part as well as mine.

Obama will continue to salute Old Glory by holding onto his crotch and remaining tight-lipped during the playing of The Star Spangled Banner, and he will continue to honor his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution by ignoring it.