We heard echoes of this in the primaries, so I shouldn’t really be surprised that Barack Obama thinks that the Brennan and Burger courts “overreached.” Greenwald:

. . . given that the defining rulings of those decades have long formed the bedrock of the progressive understanding of the Constitution and the judiciary, that the dominant Justices of that era (Brennan, Marshall, Douglas, Black) are the iconic liberal judges of the 20th century, and that those decades produced the most vital safeguards for core Constitutional guarantees and critical limits on executive power, Obama — as I said yesterday — should at least specify which decisions he finds “erroneous” and illegitimate. But the imperial decree has been issued and that’s apparently all you need to know:

The White House declined to identify rulings that Mr. Obama believes relied on judicial activism.

The absolute dumbest political platitude in the vast canon of right-wing idiocies has long been the premise that courts act improperly — are engaged in “judicial activism” — whenever they declare a democratically enacted law invalid on the ground that it is unconstitutional. That’s one of the central functions of the courts, a linchpin of how our Constitutional Republic operates. We’re not a pure democracy precisely because there are limits on what democratic majorities are permitted to do, and those limits are set forth in the Constitution, which courts have the responsibility to interpret and apply. When judges strike down laws because they violate Constitutional guarantees, that’s not a subversion of our political system; it’s a vindication, a crucial safeguarding of it.

But now, here is Obama giving credence to that idiocy with his sweeping, unspecified condemnation of the Warren and Burger Courts as “judicial activists.” If, as Obama argues, some (or many) of the decisions of that era are “errors” of activist overreaching, wouldn’t the current Court be justified in reversing them? And won’t Republican Senators be justified in demanding that Obama refrain from nominating to the Court anyone whose records seems compatible with the defining judicial approach of those courts (since, after all, even Obama acknowledges they were in “error”)? Why is Barack Obama walking around echoing the right-wing/Limbaughian view that the Supreme Court’s decisions of the 1960s and 1970s were illegitimate, anti-democratic power grabs?

It’s one thing to argue, as Obama has previously, that it sometimes makes more sense to accomplish political goals democratically rather than through the courts, and that liberals in the past have been too reliant on judicial victories in lieu of persuasion and organizing. As a general strategic proposition, I don’t disagree with that view. But that has nothing to do with the proper role of judges, which is to strike down any and all laws brought before them which violate the Constitution. That core principle is the one Obama is disparaging.

Just when, in a moment of weakness or wishing that it were so, I think, well, maybe . . . Obama does or says something that confirms to me all over again just exactly who he is. And it isn’t a liberal, or a progressive, or a Democrat. And to all you “progressives” who screamed at me and told me I “had” to support Obama because, “The Supreme Court!” Go fuck yourselves. Because your actions have surely done it to the rest of us.

We now have a “constitutional scholar” inhabiting the Oval Office who appears to have no understanding of the concept of checks and balances or the separation of powers, and who, though he has a D after his name, is nothing more than a ringer. In other words, Republican rule continues unabated, in the person of Barack Obama.

It was once the case, not all that long ago, that those who pointed out the extreme similarities between the Obama and Bush administrations in these areas were accused of being hysterical, impetuous purists. It’s now the case that those who do so are guilty of nothing more than stating the obvious.

Word, Glenn. Word.

Edited to add this comment by kovie at Greenwald’s post.

Obama is neither a liberal nor a conservative

Rather, he is a patronizing and fatuous gasbag who stands for nothing other than whatever his political needs require on that particular day. I suspect that he no more believes that the Warren and Burger courts were actually improperly activist than he believes that financial firms acted improperly. He says things for effect, not because he actually believes in them, and he does this both because he’s a political opportunist, and because I believe that he doesn’t actually believe in anything, not deeply at least. He believes in what works, not in any core principles.

Obama is, always was and always will be a cipher, not only to us but to himself. This is a game to him, and I don’t believe that he has any control over that. There is something broken in his soul. To say what he said about the courts that gave us Brown, Griswold and even Roe tells us all that we need to know about his character. He’s not on our side, and cannot be trusted. At most, he can be a vehicle for some progressive change, but only through pressure, not good faith.

There’s a special place in hell for people who diss their own side to score cheap points with the other side. People like that end up being despised by both sides alike, as standing for nothing and being completely disloyal and untrustworthy. He has major character issues, that one.

—kovie

Originally posted at Blue Lyon