Does the President have standing in court?

The Constitution requires the President in their oath “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”. During the “Is Obama a NBC” (don’t worry, he is and let’s hope this thread doesn’t degenerate into THAT discussion), one problem was that an ordinary citizen did not have standing.

Is there any legal justification to the idea that the President, performing his/her duty under the Oath, has standing before the court addressing violations of the Constitution?

I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. What does that get me?

Ahh, but the President’s is specificly prescribe in the Constitution as one of his duties - yours is not. In fact, the President is unique in that respect.

“Standing” is not some attribute that you either do or do not have – it’s with reference to a particular single actual or proposed legal action. And how you get it is by having the courts recognize that you can make a reasonable argument that you will be ‘injured’ in some way by the action you’re bringing a case about. ‘Injury’ is a technical term covering any sort of loss, whether physical or emotional injury, financial loss, loss of property value, or whatever you can convince a court is harmful to you as an indvidual. E.g., “Flibinite Paving agreed to resurface my driveway and took my down payment for the work, and has never done the work. To permit them to keep the down payment and not do the work is a financial loss to me.” Or “I can show a claim to the land on which grows the walnut tree that shades my house and gives me walnuts to eat, and has for 30 years. My neighbor claims it’s his land and tree and is proceeding to have it removed to improve reception on his satellite dish. I want a temporary injunction to prevent him removing the tree until a case is heard determining whose land and tree it is, and after that case is heard and found in my favor, a permanent injunction preventing him from removing the tree.”

The President has no more standing than you or I do in those two cases, presuming we’re not the driveway owner, the owner of Flibinite Paving, or one of the landowners claiming the land where the walnut tree grows. But the President’s job as defined in Article II of the Constitution and statutes and regulations put in place pursuant to it, means that he has standing whenaver the United States is party to a case, including all Federal criminal cases and all cases in which the U.S. government acts as party in a lawsuit, whether suing or being sued. Normally he’ll act through U.S. Attorneys, the Attorney General, or the Solicitor General, but they are acting under his aegis as the one person on whom the duties of the Executive fall.

Being the President I think they would allow him to sit down.

Strictly speaking, it’s any case in which the United States has an interest. Thus, the DOJ might submit briefing in cases challenging the validity of a federal law, even if the Government is not a party.

Just as long as he doesn’t bow.

So then what did the Founding Fathers mean by “defend and protect the Constitution”?

What did they mean by any of that stuff? We’ve been arguing about five-word clauses of awkwardly constructed sentences in that document for a couple hundred years now. Seems to me the country was founded by conspirators who sought to increase the economic demand for lawyers.