But The Worst Of It Is...

He was wrong.  I'm talking about President Obama and his utterly classless attack on the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address.  He said,

"With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

What has it come to when the reliably liberal Linda Greenhouse explains in the New York Times, a century of law was not overturned.

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election.

Obama indulged himself in a bit of fake populist demagoguery that was immediately applauded by the rest of the political hacks in his party who were on hand to listen, including his Attorney General Eric Holder.  Of course, this sort of attack is just we expect from our Community-Organizer-In-Chief, unfortunately it is unbecoming of a president. 

It also calls his competence into question, yet again.  Here's a guy who called himself a professor of constitutional law while on the presidential campaign trail.  He graduated from Harvard Law School and spent 12 years teaching at the University of Chicago, eventually achieving the title of senior lecturer. But wouldn't you expect a senior lecturer to get it right?

But could a graduate of Harvard Law School at least get his facts right? "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections," Mr. Obama averred. "Well, I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

Let's unpack the falsehoods. The Court didn't reverse "a century of law," but merely two more recent precedents, one from 1990 and part of another from 2003. Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce in 1990 had set the Court in a markedly new direction in limiting independent corporate campaign expenditures. This is the outlier case that needed to be overturned.

Mr. Obama is also a sudden convert to stare decisis. Does he now believe that all Court precedents of a certain duration are sacrosanct, such as Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal, 1896), which was overturned by Brown v. Board (1954)? Or Bowers v. Hardwick (a ban on sodomy, 1986), which was overturned by Lawrence v. Texas (2003)?

The President's claim about "foreign entities" bankrolling U.S. political campaigns is also false, since the Court did not overrule laws limiting such contributions. His use of "foreign" was a conscious attempt to inflame public and Congressional opinion against the Court.

I think that last sentence captures Obama and his purpose.  Community Organizer Obama intended to inflame resentments, stoke public opinion, and smooth the way should his opportunity to nominate a radically leftist ideologue to the Court materialize.

But I wonder if it's going to work for him.  No doubt there will be some who will be suitably outraged, but there is a growing number of people who notice Obama's mistakes.  He panders and it's obvious.  But he's not even good at that anymore.