Obama remarks from 2001
From: Eagle Forum
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 10:32 AM
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Barack Obama in 2001: "It's a tragedy that 'redistribution of wealth" not pursued by Supreme Court.
Fellow Eagles,
Please circulate this email widely.
In case you have not yet seen this news story or heard this audio clip, please take a few minutes to listen: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/10/mccain_slams_ob_3.html
Drudge was the first to report this story, after a radio interview Barack Obama did for a Chicago radio station back in 2001 was unearthed earlier today. Seven years prior to Obama’s statement to “Joe-the-Plumber” about wanting to “spread the wealth around,” this interview shows Obama explaining in great detail his support for the concept of redistribution of wealth being promoted and achieved through the courts (via judicial activism). He even goes as far as to state his opinion that the Warren Court “wasn’t that radical.”
For reference, here is what Eagle Forum president and founder, Phyllis Schlafly, says about the Warren Court in her book, The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It:
In the early days of the new era of judicial supremacy, Congress and the media had the courage to speak out against Supreme Court arrogance. Close observers clearly understood that the Warren Court was making dramatic departures from previous Courts, that it was boldly seizing legislative functions, and that Congress had a duty to halt the Court’s assault on other branches of government.”
The case that gave legal life to the false but now widely held concept of judicial supremacy is Cooper v. Aaron (1958)…Cooper v. Aaron asserted that John Marshall’s famous line from Marbury v. Madison (1803) had ‘declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by this Court and the Country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system. It follows that the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment enunciated by this Court in the Brown (Brown v. Board of Edu.) case is the supreme law of the land…’”
No one before had ever asserted that a Supreme Court decision is “the supreme law of the land.” The Constitution clearly defines the supreme law, and the judiciary is not part of the definition.”
When judges ramble on in their opinions with discussions that are unnecessary to the decision, their extra words are called “dicta.” Dicta have been with us from the beginning of the federal courts, but in the 1950s the Warren Court began pretending that dicta were part of the decisions. These gratuitous words have now become so common in court opinions that many people don’t realize that they are beyond the scope of judicial authority.”
The concept of judicial supremacy did not originate with the Constitution, and it did not come from Marbury v. Madison. It is an outrageous assertion of judicial exclusiveness that dates from unprecedented overreaching by the Warren Court in the 1950s and 1960s. Yet it has now become so ingrained in our legal culture that many people wonder how our society could function without it.”
What is needed today is for judges to return to their traditional respect for the Constitution and its separation of powers into three branches.”
Suzanne Bibby
Eagle Forum
Legislative Assistant
