Zandar's Thought Of The Day

The Village effort to change the subject away from Obama's substance in the SOTU speech to how "arrogant" and "uppity" he was for "calling out the Supreme Court" is really starting to grate on my nerves.

[UPDATE 2:13 PM] Double G lays it out.

Right-wing criticisms -- that it was Obama who acted inappropriately by using his  SOTU address to condemn the Court's decision -- are just inane.  Many of the Court's rulings engender political passions and have substantial political consequences -- few more so than a ruling that invalidated long-standing campaign finance laws.  Obama is an elected politician in a political branch and has every right to express his views on such a significant court ruling.  While the factual claims Obama made about the ruling are subject to reasonable dispute, they're well within the realm of acceptable political rhetoric and are far from being "false" (e.g., though the ruling did not strike down the exact provision banning foreign corporations from electioneering speech, its rationale could plausibly lead to that; moreover, it's certainly fair to argue, as Obama did, that the Court majority tossed aside a century of judicial precedent).  Presidents have a long history of condemning Court rulings with which they disagree -- Republican politicians, including Presidents, have certainly never shied away from condemning Roe v. Wade in the harshest of terms -- and Obama's comments last night were entirely consistent with that practice.  While Presidents do not commonly criticize the Court in the SOTU address, it is far from unprecedented either.  And, as usual, the disingenuousness levels are off the charts:  imagine the reaction if Ruth Bader Ginsburg had done this at George Bush's State of the Union address.

The real problem is the Citizens United ruling itself.