President Obama made headlines this week for suggesting that the Supreme Court overturning his healthcare bill's individual mandate would be "an unprecedented, extraordinary step" of judicial activism.
The Washington Examiner reported that the President's press secretary was clarifying those comments after a broad spectrum of conservatives lambasted them.
"What the president did was make an unremarkable observation about 80 years of [judicial] history," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "That's the opposite of intimidation."
However Salon pointed out that, for all of the Republican talk of "intimidation," the President really had no power to influence the justices:
Of course, the Republican talking point is that the president is attempting to bully the Court into ruling the way he wants. (Because if they strike down the law, he’ll … yell at them during the State of the Union again? No one seriously predicts an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Roberts here.)
Did the President overstep his bounds by criticizing the Court or were his statements "unremarkable?" Has Obama gone too far in his criticisms of the Supreme Court? Vote now on Facebook!
