Obama scolds the SCOTUS retards

h/t my reader cj:

In a sign that elections are coming, Obama is doning the “postpartisan” cloak again, using the Reagan lexicon about the excesses of the 60s and 70s.

Obama Times offers this unsurprising headline

Obama Says Liberal Courts May Have Overreached

WASHINGTON — In a seeming rejection of liberal orthodoxy, President Obama has spoken disparagingly about liberal victories before the Supreme Court in the 1960s and 1970s — suggesting that justices made the “error” of overstepping their bounds and trampling on the role of elected officials.

Here’s the Reaganesque quote

“And in the ’60s and ’70s, the feeling was — is that liberals were guilty of that kind of approach. What you’re now seeing, I think, is a conservative jurisprudence that oftentimes makes the same error.”

So, as NY Times reveals – here’s what he’s ceding to conservatives

Mr. Obama’s comments, which came as he prepares to make a Supreme Court nomination, amounted to the most sympathetic statement by a sitting Democratic president about the conservative view that the Warren and Burger courts — which expanded criminal defendant rights, required busing to desegregate schools and declared a right to abortion — were dominated by “liberal judicial activists” whose rulings were dubious.

Which makes perfect sense from the Jane Crow president – I have to admire the consistency. Even if Obama Times is trying hard to make believe it didn’t actually happened

Still, Mr. Obama, who formerly taught constitutional law, did not cite any specific decisions. He has long been a supporter of abortion rights, and repeatedly defended the court’s interventionist stance during the civil rights movement because minorities were cut out of the political process, even while saying that such a role would be inappropriate today.

Hey, NY Times – name one instance of “support of abortion rights” from Obama.

I didn’t think so, but nice try.

Still, good on you quoting those who make clear what the difference between the two brands of activism is

his effort to establish a moral equivalency between the Warren court and the Roberts court.”

And the president of the liberal Alliance for Justice, Nan Aron, argued that the Warren and Burger courts had helped make progress on economic and social fronts for people who lacked political power, while the Roberts court is “tilted in favor of those who already have power and influence.”

.Of course, we knew all along what Obama thinks of civil rights and progressive principles. What is surprising is that adopting this “post-partisan” attitude, he thinks people would have any reason to vote for the “D”s in November.

In B0botland they are confused, considering previous awakenings

Obama Criticizes Liberal Warren & Burger Supreme Courts as “Too Liberal”

Most are trying to blame the reporters for misreporting this – didn’t happen so stop saying that

Given how much the reporters mischaracterized his remarks here, I don’t accept their indirect quote.

“….even while saying that such a role would be inappropriate today.” Sorry, Savage, you’ll have to show me the direct quote and context – I don’t believe for a minute that your interpretation is accurate.

19. The NYT strikes again.

We all know they will whore for the $ client.

or see the multidimensional chess again

16. actually, he didn’t say that

he used purposely vague rhetoric. Here, he really is playing chess.

.But some do get it

1. That isn’t the hope and change I thought I was going to get.

.and

91. With one comment he legitimized all conservative criticism of Roe v Wade and other landmarks

Does this guy have a CLUE when it comes to politics? The best interpretation is that he doesn’t. I don’t even want to consider the idea that he knows exactly what he’s doing.

.Well, he did that before the comment, with the Jane Crow EO , demanding that contraceptives be taken out of the stimulus, when he said abortion is not a matter of women’s freedom but a moral issue etc. But good on you to notice now.

Update

Apparently Glen Greenwald who reported this yesterday also had  people scolding him for misrepresenting Obama. In his original post he links the actual interview where the quotes come from. Here’s the whole thing:

Well, I mean, here’s what I will say.  It used to be that the notion of an activist judge was somebody who ignored the will of Congress, ignored democratic processes, and tried to impose judicial solutions on problems instead of letting the process work itself through politically.  And in the ’60s and’70s, the feeling was, is that liberals were guilty of that kind of approach.

What you’re now seeing, I think, is a conservative jurisprudence that oftentimes makes the same error.

and just because I found this great list of logical fallacies, here’s the one applicable to what Obama is doing:

False Compromise:

if one does not understand a debate, it must be “fair” to split the difference, and agree on a compromise between the opinions. (But one side is very possibly wrong, and in any case one could simply suspend judgment.) Journalists often invoke this fallacy in the name of “balanced” coverage.

“Some say the sun rises in the east, some say it rises in the west; the truth lies probably somewhere in between.”

Television reporters like balanced coverage so much that they may give half of their report to a view held by a small minority of the people in question.

B0bots hoping Obama will re-think his drilling policy

A slew of discussions blossomed in B0botland based only on some throw-away commentary on MSNBC. The hopeful

Breaking – Obama is having a rethink

and the more cynical

Obama was against Atlantic coast oil drilling than rethunk it and is now rethinking it again!

Of course, it’s the first one which is funnier, as the operatives already try to use this premature  news to attack the other side

7. Any comment from the queen of drill baby drill

or is she still hiding in Arizona.

Umm, for a comment – there would have to be some actual news.

The funnier still is the apologists effort to whitewash Obama retroactively

16. Obama didn’t believe in drilling in the first place

And he said so. His view was that allowing drilling is a fair compromise to get the rest of what he wants.

to which assorted good answers are given,

31. So he doesn’t stand up for what he believes in? That’s just great.

this being the best

55. What does ‘believing in’ something have to do wtih anything?

It’s like politics has become a religion. It’s the results of policies that matter. Maybe he’ll bail out on this drilling proposal because of this disaster, maybe not, time will tell. It’s sort of twisted how the timing worked out on this, isn’t it?

and one very healthy reaction

49. WTF??? Because until this spill, it was not conceivable?

WTF kind of thinking is that? Raise of hands, who didn’t know that something like this spill was possible? W.T.F!!!!

Indeed. Considering what Gibbs said to reporters on Wednesday

“I doubt this is the first accident that has happened, and I doubt it will be the last,” Gibbs said.

The snarky thread on the spill pretty much takes care of all the compliments of the apologists

Obama was against Atlantic coast oil drilling than rethunk it and is now rethinking it again!

I wonder what President Obama will think in August and later this November about Atlantic coast offshore oil drilling? Obama was for single payer health care and than rethunk it. Later Obama was for a public option in health care and than rethunk it. President Obama rethinks stuff a lot! Cool!

and in there someone does notices, at the end of the day that there is not yet any official statement on this

4. It’s be nice if he gave US a clue

Like, say, telling his Press Secretary what his official position is.

I’ll close with a lucid post from the hopeful thread

Like he has a choice right now

The timing couldn’t have been worse from his perspective (or that of the industries whose interests he supports). I highly doubt there will be any significant change in our overall energy strategy as a result of this. In a year people (who don’t live in affected areas) will forget this, or the oil industry will announce new safety measures, and we’ll be right back here where a Democratic president supports offshore drilling. It’s not like this disaster wasn’t a possibility as of a few weeks ago when Obama announced his drilling plan – this ‘accident’ was the inevitable result of mediocre regulations and the absence of any political force willing to challenge the status quo. It’s not like the first and only oil spill ever. Is our nation’s collective memory capable of going back further than a month at a time? I guess the good news here is for the coal industry – we’ll be so worried about the oil spill we’ll forget all about the recent mining accidents. Does anyone else feel like they are just having the same nightmare over and over again?

You have to wonder: where were the wits of these people two years ago?

Meanwhile, the MSNBC leaked rethink on the leak finally gets official.

The Confluence comments on the deja vu in an entry appropriately titled

White House Shuts Barn Door After Horses Escape

.I find it fascinating that such an important policy decision is made public by political henchman Axelrod, rather than say EPA, or Energy secretary or such. Geez, I wonder why?

And sure enough, nothing is changed

Obama: New oil leases will need safeguards

President Barack Obama on Friday, in a largely symbolic gesture, promised that no new offshore oil drilling leases will be issued unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent a repeat of the explosion that unleashed the massive spill threatening the Gulf Coast. The assurance had no immediate impact because no new leases are scheduled for the coming months.

Or, as they say in B0botland

9. Is this sorta like he was against the drilling before he was for it, and

now he’s leaning toward against again but only if they’re not really careful?

…

Tabloids: Oil spill, Criminal probe in Coldman Sachs

I will have two covers of the day – one for each of the major topics today.

For putting it into a huge headline, NY Post gets the Goldman Sachs cover

.and for putting the AP headline on page one, Orlando Sentinel gets the oil spill cover

.Washington Times has a hopeful headline on elections: all the cash in the world doesn’t affect polls anymore – maybe Obama accomplished something after all

if you overlook the fact that the amounts are now ten times higher than before his POTUS billion

.Dorothy Height’s funeral gets also coverage in WaPo with a good headline

.The Examiner gives the oil spill a good photo, headline

.and so does USA Today – adding a little photo of M0’s bare arms at the funeral (cocktails afterwards?)

.The Wall Street Journal startles by how it hides the Goldman Sachs news under the oil  spill – literally

Stars and Strpes reminds us we still have two wars going (hear that, deficit hawks?)

.In New York City, the papers offer us a variety of trivia

Let the racial gamesmanship begin err-continue

I am used to reading outrageous things in the media. Lies, exaggerations, Orwellian spin. I don’t shock easily. But ever once in a while there’s something that I read that makes my brain hurt. And my heart too. So I have to write about it.

In an article by The Hill titled

DNC chairman fights race-baiting charges

.I found this sentence

Two years after Barack Obama became the first black president, in an election largely devoid of racial gamesmanship,

the two national party committees are going after each other in strongly racial terms.

It is so enormous, I find it a daunting task to even count the levels on which this is wrong. Is it the cynicism of the words used or the enormity of the lie?

So, I am going to start with the easiest: what happened to the “post-racial” candidate?

What happened to that outrageous promise?

And what does “largely devoid” mean? How largely would that be? Not starting riots?

I couldn’t of course rewind to the “devoid of racial gamesmanship” memories.

Fortunately, at the height of personal hurt and outrage, I made an entry, then a page to this blog that I titled “I am a racist”

It featured some – not all of the “lack of racial gamesmanship” – mostly from the primaries

Wait a minute:

Racial gamesmanship?

Where are these racial games taking place? In Chicago, instead of the Olympics? A new word in the Obama Lexicon – meaning playing games with race? Using race to win games? Gaming the elections with race? Or the old fashioned “race-baiting”. Is the media narrative now this did not happened in 2008?

Sorry if I seem thick – it’s just a bit too big to swallow.

And what is The Hill trying to argue? That repeating the tactics of 2008 also have nothing to do with “racial gamesmanship?

All of it stems from the 2010 electoral plan Democrats unveiled this week. The plan relies on turning out the roughly 15 million first-time voters who cast ballots for Obama in 2008, with many of those voters happening to be black or Latino. Democrats have said their efforts will focus on those minorities and cautioned that the GOP may seek to suppress their votes.

Well, let’s unpack this one. Did the “R”s steal minorities votes? Cough cough – Florida 2000. Do the “D”s have any moral ground talking about stealing votes? Cough, cough – Florida 2008. Easy story – that also frames my stint as a democrat.

So here are the accusations

“Out of options, the president and his top campaign aide are going back to the Democrats’ worn-out playbook and making false and reprehensible accusations of voter suppression,” Steele said. “At what point will Chairman Kaine and the Democrats realize that polarizing this country on the lines of race is not only passé, it’s wrong and ineffective?”

I would be somewhat sympathetic to the DNC if those warnings about stealing their votes didn’t sound so much  like Obama’s repeated speeches: “they are going to tell you that I don’t look like the men on the dollar bill”

I have seen plenty of racist “R”s. Still, I know better than to generalize that they all are.

And in the middle of the “holier than though” posturing on the subject, the racist “D”s shone especially bright. I am thinking of the “clean and articulate” VP as well as the “negro dialect” Senate majority leader.

So, the “D”s would be well advised to tone it down with the “they are going to tell ya/do it” calls to arms. because in the end, the number of the people they offend will be larger than the number of people they get in the voting booth.

Tabloids: trophy seats for GOP, banking bill, oil spill, winds

Chicago Tribune is my Cover of the Day today because of this desperate hug Obama gives his departing from politics corrupt buddy running for his old seat (was that seat EVER won earnestly I wonder?) Anyway, the hug is significant in the light of the knowledge the WH is resigned to let that seat go

WaPo has the caption that would complement the Chicago Times photo

GOP EYES TROPHY SEATS IN THE SENATE

.The other big November story is Charlie Crist switch to independent in Florida. Here it is in Miami  Herald   along with the alarm for the coastline that Obama so cavalierly ceded to oilmen

I am talking of this ugly spill, pictured in Obama Times

There’s good news as well. First windmill farm approved by the feds – sharing the cover with health insurers fraud in Boston Globe

.and since it’s so beautiful, all by itself in the Cape Cod Times

Back to elections, USA Today provides a calendar for the primaries and the now expected  daily bad news from the -historical- Healthcare Reform

In Financial news, while the GOP filibuster was dropped here, Greece is sinling (thank you, GS!) – a good cover by DC’s Express

.and per Wall Street Journal, Spain is worrying of catching it too

.Stars and Stripes reminds us there are two wars going on (attention deficit hawks)

In NY, the only non-Bullock news is about the La Guardia airport:

.