A Century Is Longer than 20 Years

Constitutional law professor Obama lecturing the US Supreme Court on their alleged mistake is like a couch potato Chicago Bears fan telling the multi-Superbowl winning Broncos linemen they don't know how to block.

The folks on the court, and specifically the majority who struck down McCain Feingold, didn't get where they are by virtue of buying folks off or affirmative action or sending union thugs to intimidate, or having the press kneecap their opponents by releasing sealed divorce records...

Does anyone know how to count nowadays anyway? When you see how many of the political campaigns are run and funded, I'm sure that numbers are not the same for us as they are for them.

I believe the President knew exactly what he was saying. He knew he was misspeaking. ANd it was for the benefit of the thousands of Americans who were sitting at home watching and listening. He knows the majority of people are unaware of the finer legal points of campaign contributions and so would believe his lies. It was a calculated risk on his part.

I think there is a much simpler explanation for what appears to be an error, but is actually correct. The President was speaking of dog years. Having heard much of the speech I suspect it was, in fact, written by his dog Bo (which would explain the bark at the supremes). I find it astonishingly speciescentric of the posters on this blog to assume that the speech had to have been written by a "human". For shame!

Perfect! Thanks.

woof!

Another Univ. of Chicago misinformed Constitutional Law Professor like Posner!

If his policies were all adopted fortwenty years they would set the country's standard of living back at least a century.

Mr. O'Bama thinks his eloquent delivery will over-shadow all else, whether fact or fiction. Unfortunately, his fiction world will be the failure of his adminstration.

He was referring to the fact that 100 or so years ago SCOTUS established that juristic persons such as corporations have equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment, but specifically did not extend other Constitutional rights to these groups. This ruling does in fact change that status pretty importantly, by granting what are generally considered 'human rights' provided by the Constitution to juristic persons including Corporations. So it does backhandedly 'reverse' 100 years of state statutes and case law that are predicated on the idea that these rights are not extended to non-humans. While the court did not expressly rule on a point not part of the case - whether Corporations can make direct contributions to candidates, there is no way logically you can expect the upcoming cases challenging that ban to not be successful, given the explicit extension on rights to corps in this ruling.

"The Court has recognized that the First Amendment appliesto corporations, e.g., First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 778, n. 14". So this issue regarding whether Corporations had free speech rights was determined in 1978 by Powell, Burger, Stewart, Blackmun, and Stevens.

Disgusted: "This ruling does in fact change that status pretty importantly, by granting what are generally considered 'human rights' provided by the Constitution to juristic persons including Corporations."

I think you misunderstand the ruling. Justice Scalia made it very clear that is was not the speaker which is protected but rather the speech and the person who would hear it.

The First Amendment protects a citizen from a powerful government which would decide what speech the citizen is allowed to hear. It's not a right granted to a speaker, but rather to a listener. As such, it makes no difference whether the speaker is a single person, an organization, a union, a church, or a corporation. It is the speech - and the right of the citizen to hear it - which is protected.

"The First Amendment protects a citizen from a powerful government which would decide what speech the citizen is allowed to hear. It's not a right granted to a speaker, but rather to a listener."

I'd say the first Amendment is a limitation on the power of government, specifically in this case "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press".

Rights are interesting religious and philosophical concepts, but the Constitution discusses on-Earth realities.

I joked earlier, but that's what I was wondering when I read Don's post - I agree this was probably what he was refering to.

I personally side with the majority of the court on the decision itself, but I think Don misdiagnosed this faux pas.

Daniel, are you correcting Professor Boudreaux based on your expert opinion as a lawyer?

It is Georgetown University Law Professor Randy Barnett, not Professor Boudreaux, who claims that President Obama committed factual errors in his criticism of the Supreme Court. Here's another passage from Professor Barnett's editorial:

"Clearly, this statement had not been vetted by the president's legal counsel. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, for example, would never have signed off on such a claim. Never."

Professor Barnett has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies and authored the book "Restoring the Lost Constitution". My guess is that he knows a lot more about constitutional law than either Disgusted or you, Daniel. A whole lot more. Further, it is likely he knows his fellow Harvard Law School alumnus, Elena Kagan, personally. I'm confident Professor Barnett is well aware of the legal advice she would have given the president.

Not every disagreement has to be construed as a personal attack, johndewey.

Your point is essentially that either we have to believe that Obama is stupid and doesn't know the law or that Barnett is stupid and doesn't know the law. I reject that proposition. Both are very intelligent men - it's very possible one just misunderstood the intentions of the other.

Obama was using deception, and thought no one will notice. Yes, politicians lie, we had a president who redefined the word sex. You would make a good speech writer for him.

Definitely politicians lie.

Did someone doubt or challenge that?

No, there is another option to the two you just lifted. Obama knows the law and he lied.

That was the first option.

Deceptive = lied.

Wow.

No, I never claimed to know more law than Barnett (and I'm aware of his background and own Restoring the Lost Constitution). What I did was speculate on what Obama actually meant, and observed that whatever Barnett's advantages over me in his legal knowledge, he has no more insight into Obama's mind than I do - AND he has an ideological incentive to put the statement in the worst possible light.

Obama is an intelligent lawyer himself. Corporate personhood is a little over a century old. We'll never know exactly what Obama intended, but you can either assume that:

1. Obama is either ignorant of or deceptive about the law and he was not refering to the Santa Clara County case, or

2. Barnett does know about the law, but he misunderstood Obama's reference to Santa Clara County

I'm opting for number 2. I don't have to disparage Don or Prof. Barnett's legal knowledge to believe that number 2 makes more sense.

I don't think those are our two options. There's also the pandering to popular impulses angle. Whether he knew what he said was strictly true or false, it certainly sounded good to people mistrustful of corporations and desirous of campaign finance reform (which I would wager is a large swath of the population).

That's sounds pretty deceitful to me, so I'd file it under my #1, but if you think it's different then sure we can add a #3.

I still think my #2 is by far and away the most plausible explanation. Corporate personhood has been front and center in the whole discussion over this case. I don't see why everyone has such a hard time believing Obama was refering to the Santa Clara case.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. He's used this sort of populist rhetoric a lot; he just went a bit further this time and it may have caught up to him.

In the run up to the speech there was a lot of talk about what groups the speech should cater to and the consensus seemed to be that those two groups were: a) those that distrust government and b) those that distrust big corporations. I think the line fit into this context.

Oh - he's definitely been playing the populist card a lot lately and it's been very unfortunate. He was definitely playing it that night.

I've said before, I disagree with Obama on the ruling itself. But the fact that I think he's wrong on the ruling and the fact that I think he's been playing populist doesn't convince me that he's ignorant of the relevant law: and the relevant law does include the Santa Clara case which did happen (roughly) a century ago. It's not like once people start acting like populists everything they say becomes factually erroneous! It's possible for him to be (inappropriately) a populist and still get this legal reference right!

What you say is true...it is possible. But I thought we were talking about probabilities of the various scenarios. While you think one possible scenario is vastly more probable, I think another is slightly more probable (based on gut instinct and heuristics). I think it's slightly more probable that Obama wanted to talk to a certain constituency, his rhetoric was overblown, and he said something that is false. Is this shocking? Unheard of? No and no. Politicians of all stripes regularly engage in this sort of thing.

That's why I wanted to agree to disagree. I have a feeling you have far greater confidence in government than I do. Where you would give the benefit of the doubt, I cast a sideways glance. When you see a problem, you look to demagogues and government for solutions, and I look at myself and to other individuals, charities, community organizations and companies for solutions. You get my general drift. Anyways, this is off topic. I hope you find what you're looking for.

I don't understand what you're implying. You're suggesting that a former law professor just forgot about the Santa Clara case, but in the midst of populist rhetoric just HAPPENED to settle in on a phrase like "a century of legal precedent", which would have just happened to coincide roughly with the Santa Clara case.

Isn't it more probable that this former law professor is well aware of the Santa Clara case and was simply refering to it?

This isn't about trusting government - you need to perform mental backflips to convincingly say what you're saying. It's much more likely he was just refering to the 1886 Santa Clara case.

No. You're arguing with someone else. I'm arguing that a politician engaged in populist rhetoric to score political points and, while doing so, told a falsehood. Most politicians are lawyers and have a firm grasp of constitutional law, but that doesn't mean they don't fudge the facts when campaigning or trying to shore up support for this or that policy. Obama is no exception here, and he's done this sort of thing many times before being elected and while serving as president, as did GW and Clinton and [insert maggot, scumbag politician]. The only reason it became such a big deal was b/c of Alito's reaction. Otherwise, it would have just been one of the many items to show up on the fact checker sites as questionable at best.

My other point was an aside. I've read many of your comments and gone to your blog. You obviously have very different instincts than I do. I'll leave it at that.

Thanks for visiting the blog!

I think I agreed with you that he's playing the populist, didn't I?

We may disagree insofar as I don't think government is always up to no good... but don't confuse yourself by thinking that I trust them or think they can do no wrong.

Good grief, Danny. No matter how plainly your idols say anything you don't like or can't readily defend, you go to any lengths to claim that the statement is suddenly all cryptic so that you can claim he's saying something entirely different and more palatable.

You would make a great propagandist.

Huh? Corporate personhood has been at the center of the discussion of Citizen's United! Why do you think it's "cryptic" to assume that Obama was referencing the Santa Clara County case?

Talk about propagandist! You've honestly convinced yourself that Obama doesn't know the difference between a 1990 case and and 1886 case. Get real Methinks. I've already said that I disagree with Obama on the ruling itself. You're not going to goad me into believing that he's a dumbass on top of that. There's nothing "cryptic" about thinking that he made a reference to Santa Clara.

Youngling,

You don't have to believe he is a dumbass, he isn't any more than Bill Clinton was a dumb ass. Clinton in particular was very clever, a Rhodes Scholar select, no less.

I, and smarter people than I, here on this Cafe have told you repeatedly that the problem with Obama, Clinton, muirduck, and probably yourself is that your brains are broken so that no matter how much native intelligence you possess, it functions in a way that is dedicated to a proposition of insanity, that being that socialism/communism/liberalism can indeed work if you can just get enough power and money. That brokenness is what makes people like Obama and you dangerous, no proofs are possible to show you that you are wrong and broken.

Anyone that harbors the religious belief that theft becomes moral if the thieves outnumber the victims is broken, his brain does not function with consistent rationality. Just that one issue alone in evidence is enough to prove brokenness of brain.

"You've honestly convinced yourself that Obama doesn't know the difference between a 1990 case and and 1886 case"

I'm not speaking for methinks, but my guess is that Obama knew exactly the "mistake" he spoke. Obama was counting on three things: most listeners would never know the facts; the Supreme Court will not get a nationally televised opportunity to defend its action; and Obama-lovers would crawl out of the woodwork to "interpret" differently his errors.

Thank you, John Dewey. That's exactly what I was thinking and I appreciate you answering as I wouldn't want to goad poor Daniel into anything right before the weekend.

Oh no - Methinks NEVER goes on here just to goad ;-)

You can't be serious.

Santa Clara and corporate personhood and the 1886 case was front and center in the discussion of Citizens United long before Obama even stood up to give this speech. End of story. No cryptic secret.

I can't believe, as someone that sides with Alito on this, that I still have to actually lay this out. The impulse to disagree with Obama and accuse him of deception no matter what he says on here is absolutely uncanny.

The problem here is that there really is not such thing as a corporation. Oh sure in a tax and financial/investment liability limitation sense there is but in a practical, functional sense not really. Corporations are a phantom entity. A ghost. In the area of practical reality they exist only in a paper sense. Corporations exist in the abstract only. Corporations don't speak. Corporations don't make decisions. Only people do.

To the extent that a corporation (or any other group entity) funds some kind of speech, it is doing so at the behest of its owners, managers and members. In other words people. But the speech and actions are ultimately those of the people. This is the vital point to understand.

Fundamentally this appears to be what the majority decision has claimed. Correctly in my own opinion.

Am I the only one to notice that, although many of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are rights of people, the First Amendment includes a blanket prohibition against enacting a law abridging the right to freedom of speech or of the press, whether exercised by a person or any other entity?

-dk

"It's not inconceivable that you could see the CITGO corporation, which is an American operation but happens to be owned by the government of Venezuela, spending $25 million on [campaign] advertisements."

http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/01/28/...

" . . .when he claimed that last week's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, 'open[ed] the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.'

The president's statement is false.

The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional. Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibiting from making "a contribution or donation of money or ather thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election" under 2 U.S.C. Section 441e, which was not at issue in the case. Foreign corporations are also prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any "expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication."

This is either blithering ignorance of the law or demagoguery of the worst kind.

— Bradley A. Smith is Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law at Capital University Law School

I don't think you adressed the issue of a US corporation owned by a foreign country or persons from a foreign country.

China is in the process of buying up all sorts if American corporations... the apparent good part of trade imbalance according to libertarian thnkers.

So what? To date, the Chinese have done nothing but save me money, while the American government costs me money. Given the evidence, an American government run in the interest of Chinese business concerns sounds like a pretty good deal.

It is going the other way as well, for example this week "Zoom Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZOOM) announced the Company intends to acquire a Chinese handset mobile video and value-added service company, Beijing Leimone Shengtong Culture Development Company ("Leimone Culture")."

And it's not inconceivable that people like you are so weak minded as to not see through campaign ads. Baaaa. Idiot.

Personally I believe that in your smack-down of muirduck, there is still a lot of truth, and that is a huge part of the problem.

Ignorant people do exist and they are allowed in the voting booths.

Idiots exist and they also are allowed in the voting booths.

Hard, irrefutable, evidence for both statements exist in the election of our current president.

I guess I didn't realize that constitutional lawyers like Obama were so much like journalists, who try to never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Our messianic leader, who is supposedly a lawyer, still behaves as though he's preaching to a groups of community agitators who never made it past 8th grade and will accept as the light and the truth anything that happens to tumble out of his mouth - uttered in a dialect of his choosing. He has obviously learned nothing from the professor Gates incident and he seems incapable of learning, full stop.

This is why justice Alito mouthed "not true" as our crass president lied and the supreme court, as guests, were forced to sit and quietly tolerate the torrent of abuse.

I thought it couldn't get more embarrassing than Bush. I was wrong.

I guess he was rounding up :)

lol Rounding to the nearest century sounds like great comedy.

"Sir, six months ago we..."

"Six months! That might as well have been 100 years!"