I’m glad Obama criticized the Supreme Court’s campaign finance decision in his State of the Union address last night. It was great political theater — Roberts, Kennedy and Alito sitting there stonefaced as everyone around them stood up and applauded the criticism. Um, awkward.
In response to one of Obama’s criticisms, Alito mouthed, “No way. Not true.” He probably didn’t realize the camera was on him — I doubt he would have muttered openly to himself otherwise.
(Oh, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg looked like she was asleep during half the speech.)
Now, I’ve read a couple of random blog comments from people who say it was “classless” for Obama to criticize the Supreme Court to their faces, or something like that. But that’s nonsense. It was perfectly appropriate for Obama to criticize a judgment of the Court. Despite the robes, Supreme Court justices are not gods; they’re a branch of the federal government, like Congress. If the President can criticize Congress, he can criticize a Supreme Court decision.
I really like this take on the matter and wish I had written it:
The Supremes are used to wafting into the House in their black robes, sitting dispassionately through the speech and wafting ethereally out again on a cloud of apolitical rectitude. It’s like they forget they’re there because they’re one of the three branches. And I truly don’t think it ever occured to them that crassly injecting themselves into the sordid partisan fray of what they like to call “the political branches” with that catastrophic decision would cause the President to treat them like people who’d injected themselves into the sordid partisan fray. (And why should they? After all, they got away with Bush v. Gore with barely a dent in their credibility). I even thought I detected a bit of “told you” coming from the four in the minority.
Tangent: What’s your take on the Republican response, not so much the content but the style, i.e., delivered before a (supportive, even boisterous) audience? At first I thought it was a politically clever, shrewd move for any opposition party to make, but then it sort of struck me as inappropriate. Then again, the very fact that we have a televised opposition response shows how much the SOTU is directed to the American people rather than Congress itself.
I actually didn’t watch it. But I don’t think it’s the first time there’s been an audience. I think I remember J.C. Watts giving the Republican response in front of a supportive audience sometime in the 90s. The whole response thing is kind of stupid, I think, because there’s really no way to look good after the president has just given a big pomp-filled speech to Congress. And I think many people have probably changed the channel by then anyway.