Please don’t turn me in to the bar! When Oakey wrote that I was tempted to write that I meant the generic “you”. But seeing as I had used his interesting point to make the quote I was responding to, it was perfectly reasonable to say it misrepresented his position. The point not being what I meant, but what readers reasonably interpreted. In no way is he subject to being accused of what I wrote. So I apologized. Now, I’ve done this in Court a half a dozen times in the past quarter century, and you can hear a pin drop and watch mouths go slack. But it works. It is so rare for an arrogant ass attorney to apologize sincerely that it is like being gobsmacked. So thanks. And thanks Mom for teaching me how.
It was written by a Democrat.
That’s not a policy statement, counsel. He’s not saying or implying what his administration might do under a given set of circumstances, which would be policy. He’s expressing an opinion of the legitimacy of a potential action of *another *group of persons, but he’s not implying any potential course of action for his Administration in response.
So again, where’s the policy? I see none.
Numero uno, there is no way, no chance, no how, that Obama does not know about the Supreme Courts function as regards constitutionality. Numero two-o, there is no way, no chance, no how that any of you actually believe he doesn’t know. There’s no way and no day he’s that stupid, or you are that stupid, and as for me, my dick is smarter than that.
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late…
Look, I agree that the President was not announcing policy. I was saying merely that there is a tortured reading of his words that allows the court to cast his words as a policy statement.
If you want me to twist tortured meanings, I can, but let’s be clear that it is devil’s advocating, not a view I endorse.
The Devil doesn’t have enough lawyers, he needs you?
I don’t know why Congress would deserve the benefit of the doubt. I imagine the point is that you have to start somewhere and make the case otherwise.
If that’s the case, is Justice’s point anything more than stating the obvious and making it sound like Obama wasn’t talking out of his ass?
OK, but you’re saying that the judge was treating the President’s remarks as a statement of policy.
How do you know this? Or is that just your WAG?
Sorry, not my debate, but I do want to register this post really seems to struggle to find something to disagree about.
Am I missing some wider significance? Is there a reason why it matters whether the judge is treating Obama’s remarks as statements of policy?
(BTW I wouldn’t have said he’s treating them as statements of policy, but rather, as statements with likely implications for policy.)
No, I’m actually trying to get at where Bricker got this from. Did this originate with the 5th Circuit judge, or is this something Bricker’s intuiting? If the former, ISTM that it’s clear that the judge is hugely out of bounds here.
Precise wording and its meaning is very important in the law biz, and if the judge based this whole shenanigan on an impression of what he thought Obama meant, rather than parsing what Obama actually said to determine whether it had potential implications for his case, then he’s committed an act of gross legal malpractice. (By a lay definition of 'gross legal malpractice, FWIW.) If the judge actually thought Obama was making even an off-the-cuff policy statement, and that was his basis for playing these games, then his sorry ass should be kicked off the bench because there’s no statement of policy, formal or informal, there.
And short of the notion that Obama might be going all Andy Jackson on us, it’s hard to see policy implications in his statement that have anything to do with the case before the 5th Circuit.
Well, it’s an inference. I going to push back a bit on “WAG,” because it’s not a wild guess, but an inference based on experience in front of judges in an appellate context.
The judge never says, explicitly, that he’s treating the President’s comments as sober policy, but he does imply it:
If you don’t give Congress the benefit of the doubt, you have a presumption that all laws are invalid until proven otherwise. That would be quite silly, really.
[QUOTE=Judge Smith]
That has troubled a number of people who have read it as somehow a challenge to the federal courts, or to their authority, or to the appropriateness of the concept of judicial review. And that’s not a small matter.
[/QUOTE]
So the airhead in the black robe assigned this homework in deference to how “a number of people” reacted to Obama’s statement, rather than being able to quote his specific words and say why he, in his capacity as a Federal judge, found them troubling.
Yeah, his butt should be kicked off the bench. I’m sure there are a few wingnut think tanks looking for thinkers of his reputation, so he wouldn’t have to find honest work.
So you agree with me then,… pretty much stating the obvious rather than a brilliant argument making the case for a brilliant constitutional scholar who was actually talking out of his ass. Where’s a teleprompter when you really need one?
And of course his reference to “Obamacare” rather than PPACA is rather telling too.
You just know that the Justice Department did their darnedest to bring the letter in under three pages, just to see if the judge would quibble.
I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m pretty sure I disagree with you.
I’m pretty sure that the administration would be perfectly happy with a C-. It’s like when you think an assignment in school is stupid, so you do the bare minimum not to affect your grade. it’s a kind of protest.