State of the Union: Lip-reading Justice Alito

In his State of the Union message, President Obama claimed the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United would “open the floodgates” for foreign companies to “spend without limit in our elections.” Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouthing words and in particular, per Gerard Magliocca, the phrase “That’s not true”. For why he might have reacted that way, see Politifact “Truth-o-Meter”.

More from Randy Barnett at Politico:

In the history of the State of the Union has any President ever called out the Supreme Court by name, and egged on the Congress to jeer a Supreme Court decision, while the Justices were seated politely before him surrounded by hundreds Congressmen? To call upon the Congress to countermand (somehow) by statute a constitutional decision, indeed a decision applying the First Amendment? What can this possibly accomplish besides alienating Justice Kennedy who wrote the opinion being attacked. Contrary to what we heard during the last administration, the Court may certainly be the object of presidential criticism without posing any threat to its independence. But this was a truly shocking lack of decorum and disrespect towards the Supreme Court for which an apology is in order. A new tone indeed.

The President also made an erroneous reference to “reversing a century of law”, which Linda Greenhouse corrects at the New York Times “Opinionator” blog.

And: Tony Mauro/NLJ, Ann Althouse. Althouse also notes that there’s a lesson for Citizen United critics in the ways Alito’s few seconds of silent protest upstaged the President: “It’s not how much or how loud you speak that counts, is it?” And Howard Wasserman at Prawfsblawg rounds up reactions on both sides from the perspective of a “somewhat-rare Democrat and Obama supporter who believes Citizens United was correctly decided.” And did the speech as delivered tone down rhetoric about Citizens United that had been distributed in printed versions?

21 Comments

  • State of the Union: Lip-reading Justice Alito…

    In his State of the Union message, President Obama claimed the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United would “open the floodgates” for foreign companies to “spend without limit in our elections.” Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouth…

  • Yeah, the fact that the Prez was totally wrong on the law wasn’t lost on Justice Alito. Also a bit thuggish for Obama to call out the Supreme Court in that vulnerable setting.

  • Barack Obama, the new poster child for:

    Those who can do, and those who can’t teach.

  • More people need to criticize the SC, after all, it was the Supreme Court that landed the USA with 2 terms of George W Bush.

  • Yeah, smirch, O needed to criticize a decision from over 9 years ago too. That’s the ticket. I see “Bush’s fault” still holds great sway with the nutroots.

  • It appears that BDS is incurable.

  • Oh, please, besmirch, try again–the Florida Supreme Court couldn’t read a Florida state law (Fl constitution?) that plainly said votes were to be counted within “X” days after an election (excluding recounts) and changed what counted as a vote…something that is mostly a power of the state legislature….AND just remember that a large part of the “problem” back then were in counties with a Democratic majority and/or a Democrat in charge of the county’s elections (in charge of approving and designing the ballots in those counties), IIRC.
    The (federal) Supremes were eventually going to have to step in sooner or later to decide everything.

  • So asking Congress to respond to a SC decision with appropriate legislation which will pass constitutional muster is wrong?

    Telling someone to ‘their face’ you disagree with them and giving reasons why is wrong?

  • Frank

    dressing down the supreme court in front of them was unpresidential and small. if i was a SC justice, i would have walked out, even if i agreed with him.

    But then maybe that means the SC shouldn’t be there at all. especially in the age of TV.

  • The Justices don’t walk out. They have other ways of making displeasure known.

  • It’s nice to get official confirmation from his own lips that this president doesn’t believe in the first amendment.

  • Sieg heil, LC

  • This is interesting in that Obama himself illegally accepted contributions from foreigners for his presidential campaign.

  • I do believe that Besmirch has just violated Godwin’s law.

  • That’s a class act there ‘smirch. You apparently can’t argue facts, so you resort to smears, which is par for the course from some folks.

    In any event, it was pretty tacky on the part of the President.

    So, one has to wonder what he was thinking. Let’s see – the SC just said that Congress does NOT have the right to make a law abridging speech. And The Chosen One want’s the Congress to make a law to……..abridge speech. Hmmm….. yeah, that’ll fly.

    What’s sad about this decision is that, besides the Congress that passed it, and the former President that signed it, there are 4 current Supreme Court Justices that are functionally illiterate in that they fail to comprehend the simple phrase of English in the 1st that says “Congress shall make no law” period, with no exceptions.

  • So Joe Wilson violates the rules of decorum and comes under fire, but Obama violates the rules of decorum and gets a warm reception from the same groups that were so worried about decorum? I wonder what people who engage in such a double standard are called.

  • As opposed to your act, No Name Guy, where you vote for a coke snorting army deserter twice. Enjoy your nucular winter.

  • I do believe that Besmirch has just violated Godwin’s law.

    And in a non sequitir fashion too, to boot. I was not expecting Godwinization based on my reply.


    As opposed to your act, No Name Guy, where you vote for a coke snorting army deserter twice. Enjoy your nucular winter.
    —-

    Come back besmirch! Come back! It’s 2010! We live in the time of hope and CHANGE. All trolls will be made whole – promise.

  • I would think that FDR’s threat to “pack” the Supreme Court is entirely comparable. And the decisions he bullied them into making still need to be undone if we are ever to return to our Constitutional form of government.

  • Besmirch must be somehow related to Rosie O’Donnell; she did the same thing to her guest on her own show regarding his stand on gun control–Tom Selleck, who was there to publicize a movie, and who had laryngitis. Approve of THAT , besmirch?

  • […] response, an annoyed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who was attending the speech as an invited guest, apparently mouthed the words “not true,” […]