For a guy who graduated from Harvard Law, Barack Obama is not really very well versed on his law or his legal history. Speaking out today about the Supreme Court’s review of Obamacare, Obama offered this stunning and completely ahistorical nugget:
Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress.Look, I’m not here to debate the finer points of Marbury v. Madison with anyone, but the fact remains that since that decision was handed down over 200 years ago, it has not exactly been “unprecedented and extraordinary” for the Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by Congress (no matter the size of the majority). In fact, it happens all the time. That is the entire point of the doctrine of judicial review, first announced in Marbury and affirmed without serious challenge ever since.