OPINION:
President Obama has crossed another red line, and not one so easily erased as those smudged out by his lethargy and timidity in the Middle East. American representative government and its more important but allusive essence, democracy, have been protected in many ways over two centuries of American history. There is, of course, the written Constitution, which sets out the basic requirements of government.
But above and beyond that, there’s the role of respect — and civility — in relationships that guarantee that these words on paper will be respected, however much in the breach.
In fact, usage as well as legalism has defined the growth of American democracy. In one of the unique features of American constitutionalism — as distinguished from inheritance of British common law — the Founders embraced the separation of powers, with each of the three equal branches of government clearly defined. The Founders turned their backs on a basic principle of British government at the time, the paramountcy of Parliament over both the king and his courts.
The Founders certainly foresaw, especially the more conservative among the revolutionaries, James Madison, that no written document alone could preserve the liberties of the new country. It was Madison’s genius that he set out to balance one branch of government against the others.
But it has never been clear that the Founders, in their considerable wisdom about governments and regimes which had gone before, meant to establish what has come to be known as “judicial supremacy.” But it quickly became an obvious manifestation of the workings of the new government that, finally, in the interplay of carefully balanced legislative, executive and judicial branches, there would have to be occasional final arbitration. The Supreme Court, in Marbury v. Madison, ruled in 1803 that the Supreme Court had the authority to determine whether a law, the work of Congress and the enforcement by the president, was constitutional.
Mr. Obama has challenged this crucial tradition twice. Once he rebuked the justices of the Supreme Court to their faces at his State of the Union address in 2012, and now, at a press conference, Mr. Obama has crossed two red lines. He rebuked the court for entertaining a challenge to Obamacare, and more important, he tried to pressure the Court as it deliberates. This threatens the very interplay among the three branches. Such a threat is beneath the presidency. We suspect the president knows better. The other branches of the government dare not let him get by with it.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.