So, Obama was a "Constitutional Law Professor", huh? Posted by: McQ
on Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Barack Obama, while doing a fundraiser in 2007 claimed, "I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution..."
Yet this constitutional law professor establishes the following as his criteria for selecting judges:
"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom," Obama told a Planned Parenthood conference in Washington, D.C., in 2007 "The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
Of Justice Alito, Obama once said:
"I've seen an extraordinarily consistent attitude on the part of Judge Alito that does not uphold the traditional role of the Supreme Court as a bastion of equality and justice for United States citizens."
A constitutional law professor should, one would think, understand the role of the federal judiciary. As should be apparent to anyone with a clue, and I don't include Senator Obama in that particular group, what he is claiming isn't anywhere close to the traditional role of the federal judiciary. What he is advocating is legislation from the bench based on emotion and empathy, not the Constitution.
Here, in plain English, is the role, of the federal judiciary found in an introduction to the US Federal Court System for Judges and Judicial Administrators in Other Countries. It may be something a particular constitutional lawyer may wish to avail himself of:
The federal judiciary is a totally separate, selfgoverning branch of the government. The federal courts often are called the guardians of the Constitution because their rulings protect the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. Through fair and impartial judgments, they determine facts and interpret the law to resolve legal disputes.
The courts do not make the laws. That is the responsibility of the Congress. Nor do the courts have the power to enforce the laws. That is the role of the President and the many executive branch departments and agencies. But the judicial branch has the authority to interpret and decide the constitutionality of federal laws and to resolve other disputes over federal laws.
Not a thing in that brief description approaches the Obama criteria for federal judges.
And folks, given the fact he may win this election, that should scare you half to death.
And folks, given the fact he may win this election, that should scare you half to death.
And if that were the only criteria, I should be scared. It is not the only criteria and having said that, I am truly afraid for this nation on this and a number of fronts. I thought the Carter administration was an abomination but Obama could make Carter seem positively NeoCon by comparison.
I’m sorry Barry, you may have uttered a cute throwaway line for your worshippers, but the current president respects the constitution far more than any socialst such as yourself ever will
Obama was never a con law "professor," nor did he hold any tenure-track position that ultimately could have led to that. It’s bad enough that this hack was ever allowed to teach con law in the first place, but seeing him get away with such flagrant résumé-padding adds insult to injury.
What he is advocating is legislation from the bench based on emotion and empathy, not the Constitution.
Basing judgements on emotion and not the constitution? Say it ain’t so!
– “America is at war with radical Islamists. … Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
– “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”
Davebotoo — America is not at war with radical Islamists? Our Armed Forces are not in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq? More of our soldiers will not be killed, as has already happened when Guantanamo prisoners have been released?
It would be a big help to your claims if you could back any of this up. It seems to me you are dead wrong on all counts.
And they certainly aren’t based on the US Constitution.
If you quoted Scalia’s entire dissent, rather than just cherry-pick a couple of lines, you’ll find plenty of argument based on Constitution and well-established precedent.
There’s always a temptation on the part of Supreme Court Justices to play the "hero," as they perceive it. The problem is who and what is defining the "heroic" for them.
Given the Court’s earlier request for the Congress to act on detainees and military commissions, and given the fact that the Congress acted in the spirit of accommodation, Kennedy’s behavior here is very strange. I mean, Congress tailored the Military Commissions Act to satisfy the Court’s concerns as expressed by Kennedy, and Kennedy ignored it.
Kennedy and the rest of the majority must have a feral sense for the weakness of this Congress, this Democratic Congress, and they decided to assert a judicial supremacy that’s way over the top of traditional USSC jurisprudence, but which they know will find cover in the media. They’re playing with many different kinds of fire here, and that includes playing with the very structure of the Republic.
They’re repeating the non-wisdom of the antiwar narrative that (lisp optional) "it’s just not right that Bush suspends the writ of habeus corpus; it’s so fundamental to our way of life," without reference to the fact that we’re talking here about war detainees for whom Congress has already created an incredibly generous means, the most generous means in our history, for them to seek military justice regarding their status and possible war crimes.
This is not a question of Constitutional rights vs. War powers. It’s a question of whether enemy combatants have access to federal civil courts, and the explicit power of the Congress to make that determination.
Does anyone have the inside scoop or some good links on just what Obama’s con law professoring amounted to? I suspect it’s amply padded like most of Obama’s resume.
Does anyone have the inside scoop or some good links on just what Obama’s con law professoring amounted to? I suspect it’s amply padded like most of Obama’s resume.
Did you post this question from your refrigerator?
Surely you could not have been at a computer with internet access, otherwise, in less time it took you to type the question, you would have had an answer...
From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro The University of Chicago released a statement clarifying Obama’s status at the university. He is a senior lecturer and has cited that he is a constitutional law professor on the trail. That’s something that has caused some criticism and allegations of exaggeration. It’s something the Clinton campaign has pushed as well in conference calls with reporters in the past week.
Here’s the statement: "The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.
So Obama says he’s a professor and the law school says he’s a professor, so I am sure the answer is clear to you... Obama is obviously lying and the university is swearing to it.
So Obama says he’s a professor and the law school says he’s a professor, so I am sure the answer is clear to you... Obama is obviously lying and the university is swearing to it.
And so Obama has such constitutional credentials that he makes statements like:
"We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom," Obama told a Planned Parenthood conference in Washington, D.C., in 2007 "The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges."
With statements like that, it is no wonder we question his credentials.
